Alibaba Cloud has unveiled a modular data center architecture that it claims will help it meet demand for AI infrastructure by improving performance and build times for new facilities.
Alibaba Infrastructure Service | Predictable data center network
Announced at its annual Apsara conference yesterday, the "CUBE DC 5.0" architecture was described as using "prefabricated modular designs" plus "advanced and proprietary technologies such as wind-liquid hybrid cooling system, all-DC power distribution architecture and smart management system."
Alibaba Cloud has not explained these techniques in depth, but claims that the modular approach reduces deployment time by up to 50 percent compared to traditional data center construction techniques.
The registry has asked Alibaba to explain how a "wind-liquid hybrid cooling system" works. For what it's worth, machine translation of the term into Mandarin, which was then fed into search engines, yielded results describing heatsink cooling – a technology that sees thin reservoirs of cooled liquids placed on hardware, with cooling achieved by circulating liquid and/or blow air over the plates.
