Google Cooling Entire Data Center With Seawater

By Marcus Yam
published

Any PC building enthusiast will know the merits of water-cooling. Now Google is taking it to the next level by water-cooling an entire data center.

In 2009 Google purchased a former building of a paper mill in Finland. Since then, the search giant has been hard at work designing a water cooling solution that would take the seawater into the data center and then channel it back out with minimal environment impact.

Check out the video that Google made on its new location:

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
51 Comments Comment from the forums
  • DjEaZy
    ... and adding to global worming...
    Reply
  • mightymaxio
    Wow thats pretty cool as long as the salt from the water doesn't rust the metal and electrical components.
    Reply
  • memadmax
    holy crap, how many servers are these bafoons gonna be running?



    Reply
  • Zeldazackman
    First, I'd Like To State That Sea/Salt Water Does Hell On Maintenance For Pipes(See Alcatraz For Evidence), 2ndly If This Works, It Has The Capability To Become Like The Eco Nuclear power-plant Surrounded by Wildlife Protections, Which Can Be Not Only Awesome, But Could Also Promote Job Growth As Well :D
    Reply
  • rantoc
    mightymaxioWow thats pretty cool as long as the salt from the water doesn't rust the metal and electrical components.
    They will likely use a heat exchanger for a closed loop in the datacentre with a non conductive/corrorive fluid.
    Reply
  • H8ff0000
    ZeldazackmanFirst, I'd Like To State That Sea/Salt Water Does Hell On Maintenance For Pipes(See Alcatraz For Evidence), 2ndly If This Works, It Has The Capability To Become Like The Eco Nuclear power-plant Surrounded by Wildlife Protections, Which Can Be Not Only Awesome, But Could Also Promote Job Growth As WellI don't mean this as some sort of personal attack or anything, but seriously, anyone who goes out of their way to type like that... At least people who ignore the use of punctuation and such aren't putting effort into purposely... I could say a lot of different negative things, but I think I've gotten my point across.
    Reply
  • BeCoolBro
    When they clean these,they'll find huge algae monsters in their pipes if they use seawater.
    Reply
  • Corsair's H99999O! :)
    Reply
  • Murissokah
    DjEaZy... and adding to global worming...
    I hope you are joking.
    Reply
  • ironmb
    ZeldazackmanFirst, I'd Like To State That Sea/Salt Water Does Hell On Maintenance For Pipes(See Alcatraz For Evidence), 2ndly If This Works, It Has The Capability To Become Like The Eco Nuclear power-plant Surrounded by Wildlife Protections, Which Can Be Not Only Awesome, But Could Also Promote Job Growth As Well
    How long did it take you to type that? Trying to impress people with your caps lingo.
    Reply