Exax Energy Tech's CO2 Energy Storage System and Its Integration with the Computing Industry

Exax Energy Tech's CO2 Energy Storage System is increasingly integrated with the computing industry!

Recently, the GB200 Grace Blackwell superchip series launched by a major chip manufacturer is regarded as the "super engine" for driving the next generation of artificial intelligence and scientific computing.

According to reports, the GB200 consists of two Blackwell GPUs and one Grace CPU, interconnected at high speed via NVLink-C2C technology, delivering five times the computing power of the GH200. However, this immense computing capability comes with staggering power consumption. The GB200 series pushes GPU TDP to new heights, with a single B200 having a TDP of 1200W, and the total TDP of the GB200 chipset, consisting of two B200s and one Grace CPU, reaching up to 2700W.

Based on the GB200 Grace Blackwell superchip, NVIDIA offers the GB200 NVL72 cabinet integration solution, which tightly integrates up to 72 Blackwell GPUs and 36 Grace CPUs in a single cabinet via an ultra-high-speed network. This design essentially condenses data center-level computing power into one cabinet, with a single cabinet power consumption reaching up to 120KW.

While the GB200 NVL72 delivers immense computing power, its 120KW high power consumption generates significant heat. Current air-cooled CPU cabinets support up to 12kW per rack, and higher-density H100 air-cooled cabinets support around 40kW per rack, both insufficient to meet its cooling needs. Therefore, the GB200 NVL72 cabinet must adopt a liquid cooling solution.

In traditional liquid cooling solutions, coolant is delivered via a CDU, flows through a cold manifold into liquid cooling plates covering the processors, absorbs waste heat generated by the processors, and then exits the manifold. The heated coolant exchanges heat with chilled water from a chiller in a heat exchanger, lowering its temperature before circulating back into the system. This cooling process effectively uses the coolant as a medium to transfer waste heat from chip operation to an external cooling system, dissipating it into the environment through forced convection and evaporation. This process inevitably increases energy and water consumption.

Principle of Traditional Liquid Cooling Process

If the CO2 Energy Storage System is used, during the power generation process, liquid CO2 must first evaporate into gaseous CO2 to drive the turbine for electricity generation. This phase change process requires significant low-grade waste heat. At this stage, the heated coolant can be integrated into the CO2 Energy Storage System, utilizing the waste heat to facilitate the evaporation of liquid CO2. The cooled coolant is then circulated back into the cabinet for reuse.

This process effectively transfers the waste heat generated by chip operation to the CO2 Energy Storage System, utilizing the phase change of CO2 to absorb the waste heat, with no chiller energy consumption and zero water usage.

Principle of Data Center Coupled with CO2 Energy Storage Cooling Process

The following case study provides a more intuitive comparison of the advantages of the two cooling technologies:

For a data center deploying 50 GB200 NVL72 units, a comparison of energy consumption between traditional liquid cooling and the CO2 Energy Storage System-coupled cooling shows that the PUE can be reduced from 1.27 to 1.15:

It can be seen that after integrating the CO2 Energy Storage System for cooling, the energy consumption of the chiller system can be reduced by 94%, with water savings of 0.24 tons per day, significantly lowering the operating costs of the data center cooling system.

Additionally, the unique "fast charge, slow discharge, independent charge-discharge" operating mode of the CO2 Energy Storage System ensures that excess electricity from wind, solar, or off-peak periods can be stored and released at appropriate times. This guarantees a stable power supply for the data center, increases the proportion of green energy, and reduces electricity costs.

In summary, the integration of Exax Energy Tech's CO2 Energy Storage System with the computing industry effectively addresses issues of high energy consumption, high carbon emissions, and cooling efficiency, significantly reducing operating costs and supporting the rapid development of future computing power.