The Open Compute Project (OCP), known for its commitment to redesigning hardware to meet the demands of growing infrastructures, is now setting its sights on the hardware requirements of artificial intelligence (AI). As AI continues to gain prominence, industry experts and leaders at this week’s OCP Global Summit gathered to discuss the significant impact it is expected to have on data centers and the technology landscape.

The inevitable AI transformation

Zaid Kahn, OCP Board Chair and General Manager of Microsoft’s Silicon, Cloud Hardware, and Infrastructure Engineering, emphasized that AI is not just a passing trend but a profound technological shift that will shape our lives. He predicted that AI would drive massive investments in IT infrastructure and data center expansion very shortly.

The challenges of AI in data centers

While the potential of AI is immense, it also presents several system design challenges. Zane Ball, Vice President and General Manager for Data Center Platform Engineering and Architecture at Intel, pointed out that power consumption is among the most significant issues facing AI users. AI models are growing exponentially, requiring substantial infrastructure that consumes megawatts of power.

Ball stressed the importance of Liquid Cooling, noting that it can lead to a 30% reduction in power consumption at the data center level. He went further to suggest that even CPUs will require liquid cooling. Intel is committed to investing in CPUs to enhance AI capabilities and make it a practical application on standard servers.

The rise of liquid-cooled data centers

Andy Bechtolsheim, Chief Development Officer and Co-founder at Arista Networks and an OCP board member, championed the benefits of water-cooled systems. According to Bechtolsheim, the era of liquid-cooled data centers has arrived with the advent of AI. He acknowledged that while many are eager to deploy large data center designs based on liquid cooling, undeniable challenges are associated with its complexity.

AI: Transforming the world

Loi Nguyen, Executive Vice President and General Manager for Optical at Marvell, a cloud and data center infrastructure technology company, painted a visionary picture of AI’s impact. He noted that a decade from now, 2023 might be seen as the beginning of a new era for AI. According to Nguyen, AI’s transformative power will enable innovations ranging from personalized healthcare to addressing climate change and even communicating with marine life such as whales. However, he emphasized that as AI grows, data centers must expand in size and consume more power to support these innovations.

Preparing for the AI-driven future

As the OCP Global Summit in San Jose made clear, the rise of AI is not just a technological trend but a fundamental shift in how we approach data center infrastructure and computing. The potential benefits of AI are vast, from revolutionizing healthcare to tackling global challenges like climate change. However, to harness this potential, data centers must adapt and scale, and innovative solutions like liquid cooling are becoming necessary.

The words of industry leaders at the summit underscored the urgency of preparing for the AI-driven future. Investments in AI infrastructure and data centers are poised to accelerate, and as technology continues to evolve, so must our approach to meeting its demands. As we look ahead to the next decade, it’s clear that 2023 will be remembered as the year when AI reshaped the world, and data centers played a pivotal role in enabling that transformation.