Sure, here’s the translation into American English:
In the era of artificial intelligence and the exponential growth of data processing, data centers face an urgent challenge: how to dissipate the heat generated by millions of servers without ramping up energy consumption or depleting water resources. One potential solution is emerging from Barcelona: immersion cooling.
According to a study published in Science, data centers consume around 205 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually, accounting for nearly 1% of the world’s total electricity. A significant portion of that energy is exclusively dedicated to keeping the equipment cool.
Pol Valls and Daniel Pope, founders of the Catalan company Submer, are betting on changing the game: their technology allows for the immersion of entire servers in a dielectric fluid—non-conductive electrically, but an excellent thermal conductor—to dissipate heat efficiently, reducing cooling-related energy consumption by up to 99% and the physical space required by 85%.
“We immerse any type of electronic component or server in a tank with a specially designed fluid to transfer heat without damaging the equipment,” explains Pol Valls. The idea emerged during a hot summer in 2015, and after years of research, they managed to create a functional system that began being manufactured at scale in 2018.
Since then, Submer has not stopped growing. Today it has offices in Barcelona, Houston, and Taipei, a workforce of over a hundred people, and contracts valued at more than 100 million euros. Its technology is already being used by major cloud providers like Supermicro and Dell, as well as companies in the Middle East, Asia, and the United States.
A Physical and Infrastructure Challenge
Although immersion cooling represents a highly efficient solution, its widespread adoption presents significant technical and logistical challenges, especially for data center operators.
David Carrero Fernández-Baillo, co-founder of Stackscale—a cloud and bare-metal infrastructure provider under the Aire Group—points out that “the need to keep equipment cool is pushing the entire industry to explore new solutions beyond traditional ventilation or hot and cold aisle air conditioning. Immersion cooling has a lot of potential, but it also presents integration challenges.”
“To begin with, we’re not just talking about a simple technology replacement,” Carrero adds. “Current data centers are designed around 42U racks (or similar), raised floors (with cold and hot aisles), climate control, and structured cabling. Integrating immersion systems requires redesigning the physical layout, reinforcing the technical floor, rethinking maintenance, and training specialized staff. It’s not an immediate transition, but it is necessary in the medium term, especially if we want to operate sustainably and efficiently.”
The Future is No Longer Optional
Submer has already taken the next step: designing its own data centers aimed at zero water waste and repurposing waste heat for district heating or local electrical networks. Additionally, they manufacture their products from recyclable materials under circular economy standards.
Both Submer and other companies in the sector are actively exploring new markets, and soon we will start to see the first data centers dedicated exclusively to artificial intelligence computing, designed from the outset with immersion technology.
For David Carrero, “the rise of AI is driving energy demand to unprecedented levels. It’s not just about scaling servers, but also about how to keep them operational sustainably. Immersion cooling will be part of that response, especially when power per rack exceeds 30 or 40 kW and the heat generated becomes impossible to manage with traditional methods.”
As the race for efficiency and the decarbonization of digital infrastructure advances, liquid immersion stands out as one of the most disruptive changes for data center architecture. And while it’s not yet accessible to everyone, companies like Submer and experts like Carrero agree: we are facing an inevitable transformation that will change not only how servers are cooled but also how the data center of the future is conceived and built.
References: El Hacker and Science. Image created with Dall-E.