Ionic Wind Technologies, a company formed by a Swiss research group, is experimenting with ionized air cooling (sometimes called 'ionic wind'), a solid-state fanless active cooling technology. Ionic Wind's technology relies on the electrohydrodynamic (EHD) principle: it uses electric fields to ionize air molecules and then move them, creating a flow of air without traditional mechanical fans, reports Heise.de. Ionic Wind claims that its technology could reduce the costs of data center cooling by 60%. But there are a couple of catches.
The vast majority of today's data centers use traditional air coolers and air conditioners. Air coolers do the job, but they struggle with the latest high-performance AI GPUs, such as Nvidia's B200. Many of them are needed to generate high-pressure airflows, and sometimes, they fail. Air conditioners are powerful enough to cool down modern data centers, though they consume a lot of power. As processors get more complex and hotter, the usage costs will go up.
