SK enmove announced on Feb. 28 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding for collaboration in the field of next-generation cooling solutions with SK telecom, South Korea’s leading telecommunications company, and Iceotope, a U.K.-based specialist in liquid cooling solutions. The signing ceremony took place at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, with the participation of Seo Sang-hyuk, head of SK enmove’s e-Fluids B2B Business Division; Lee Jong-min, head of Future R&D at SK telecom; and David Craig, CEO of Iceotope.
Under the agreement, the three parties will collaborate on liquid cooling technology for data centers. They plan to apply SK enmove’s cooling fluid to Iceotope’s liquid cooling solution and implement it in SK telecom’s artificial intelligence data center testbed.
Furthermore, the companies will analyze the effectiveness of liquid cooling technology in real AI server environments and cooperate on the development of a key system for liquid cooling being developed by SK telecom, the Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU).
Liquid cooling, which uses a special non-conductive cooling fluid to cool servers within data centers, is gaining attention as a new method of thermal management. It offers improvements over traditional air cooling by reducing power consumption and operational costs. Notable techniques include immersion cooling, where hardware is submerged in a cooling fluid, and precision liquid cooling.
SK enmove is moving forward with the development of optimized products for various liquid cooling solutions, including the development of cooling fluids suitable for Iceotope’s precision liquid cooling solution, following its success with immersion cooling solutions.
In 2022, SK enmove became the first in South Korea to venture into the development of cooling fluids, making an equity investment in GRC, a U.S.-based company specializing in immersion cooling solutions. In 2023, the company accelerated its pace in the liquid cooling market for data centers by signing an MOU with Dell Technologies, a U.S. PC manufacturing and IT company, for the commercialization of immersion cooling technology.
Seo Sang-hyuk, head of SK enmove’s e-Fluids B2B Business Division, stated, “As a leading developer of cooling fluids, SK enmove will contribute to the activation of the liquid cooling market by developing products optimized for enhancing energy efficiency in data centers through this collaboration.”