#18 Submer

Revolutionizing data center cooling

Read time: 5 minutes

Hi, I’m Javi Gascón.

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Today we’ll distill a company that creates sustainable immersion cooling solutions to future-proof data centers and make them more efficient: Submer ????

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What Problem Does Submer Tackle?

They deal with the very niche, yet now very popular, problem of inefficient and unsustainable cooling in data centers (DCs).

1. Energy Consumption: DCs consumed 460 TWh of electricity in 2022, almost 2% of global electricity consumption, and this figure is projected to possibly double by 2026!

2. Water Usage: 25% is direct (it’s basically all for cooling) and 75% is indirect (electricity generation, waste water treatment, etc.). The global AI demand may require 4.2 to 6.6 billion cubic meters of water withdrawal by 2027, which is 4 to 6 times the total annual withdrawal of Denmark.

3. Environmental Impact: Traditional cooling methods, such as air cooling and evaporative cooling, are becoming increasingly inadequate and contribute to significant greenhouse gas emissions and water waste.

4. Technical Limitations: High-density chips and increasing computational demands cannot be efficiently cooled by traditional methods, needing a new approach to cooling.

Product / Service ??

To tackle all of this Submer created immersion cooling solutions designed for data centers, particularly the SmartPod and MicroPod systems.

They completely submerge servers in a special biodegradable fluid that conducts heat but not electricity. The liquid comes into direct contact with the electronic components, allowing heat to transfer directly from the source to the cooling fluid.

Why is this so awesome you ask?

Increased Hardware Lifespan: The immersion cooling protects servers from dust, particles, and temperature fluctuations, extending hardware lifespan by 20-50% and reducing hardware failure rates by up to 60%.

Cost Savings: Their pods can save 25-40% on data center Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), including substantial reductions in CAPEX and OPEX, such as up to 95% savings on cooling OPEX.

Energy Efficiency: These systems achieve Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratios of 1.03 or better. Just know that 1 is perfect (impossible in practice), Google's best datacenter PUE: 1.10 and the average datacenter PUE: ~1.6.

Space Efficiency: These systems allow for higher compute densities and reduce the physical space needed by over 85%.

Overall, they enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and promote sustainability in DC operations. ??

Market ??

We all know the DC immersion cooling market is going to grow significantly, driven by the growing demand for cloud computing, AI and blockchain. It’s not only more sustainable (which regulators, investors, and clients demand), but also drastically increases efficiency and decreases costs. Submer is poised for growth.

Other Key Players

Green Revolution Cooling, Asperitas and LiquidStack are all working with immersion cooling technologies but Submer seems to be a step above thanks to their superior coolant fluid, deployment flexibility and key partnerships.

Founding Story ??

Submer was founded in 2015 by Pol Valls and Daniel Pope in Barcelona, Spain. Both founders had extensive experience in the data center industry and shared a vision to innovate the way technological infrastructure is cooled. They wanted to address energy efficiency and sustainability in IT infrastructure.

Fun fact: Daniel started a DC business at 16 and, after scaling it to over 18000 servers, sold it to Telefonica in 2009!

They were not accepted into Y Combinator, though they made it to the final interview stage. Instead of giving up, they developed their tech and launched their first commercial product, the SmartPod.

10 years later they have 3 products lines with different cooling solutions, they’ve raised $103 million from funds like Planet First Partners, Norrsken VC, and Mundi Ventures and they have partners/clients like the EU, NVIDIA, and AMD.

Top Impact Stats ??

1. They capture 100% of the heat generated by submerged servers and repurpose it for local district heating systems.
2. Their pods bring DC direct water usage down to 0 and significantly reduce indirect water usage (because they drastically increase DC efficiency).
3. Overall, Submer reduces DC energy consumption by approximately 50%.

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