Feb. 19, 2008 - For energy-hungry supercomputers, performance still trumps energy efficiency. But the demand for higher capacity has given rise to innovative cooling technologies that might soon trickle down to a datacenter near you, Network World reports.

"The standard, old, conventional under-floor cooling with central air-conditioning units just aren't adequate for the heating densities we're seeing down the road here," says Tommy Minyard of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas at Austin, which is currently developing new servers that are expected to consume more than twice the energy of a typical server rack.

TACC is experimenting with cooling units positioned at server level and is even considering spraying chips with a fine cooling mist. "If you can move the cooling directly to the chip, that is much more efficient than trying to cool the air," Minyard explains.

Minyard says such techniques might eventually be applied to conventional datacenters, which are continuing to grow in size and complexity.