When Storage, DTC, And Immersion Meet, Data Stays Cool

Author: Scott Shadley, Director of Leadership Narrative, Solidigm; Micah, DUG Technology Collection: 2025 OCP Global Summit - Expo Hall Sessions

Summary

Solidigm and DUG Technology jointly present three approaches to cooling storage in AI data centers: air cooling, direct-to-chip (DTC) liquid cooling with cold plates, and full immersion cooling. The presentation highlights how adding heat sink fins to E1.S SSDs for air cooling reduces drive density from 32 per box (no fins) to 16 (15mm fins) to 8 (25mm fins), motivating the shift to liquid and immersion alternatives.

Solidigm's key innovation is a single-sided spring-loaded cold plate for the GB200/GB300 platform's 8x E1.S SSD configuration. The drive frame is designed to allow a single-sided cold plate to cool components on both sides of the board, with chamfered edges to prevent scratching soft cold plate metals during insertion/removal, and a hook latch mechanism for spring-loaded retention. This was developed in partnership with NVIDIA for reference architectures enabling truly fanless, fully liquid-cooled servers with hot-pluggable storage.

DUG Technology, an Australian data processing company (Down Under Geo Solutions) that entered immersion cooling 12 years ago for seismic HPC workloads, has operated 400+ immersion tanks across three data centers (Perth, Malaysia, Houston). Their Houston facility is 15 MW, won Data Center Dynamics' 2019 design award, and maintains a lifetime PUE of 1.04. IT hardware in immersion lasts 10+ years due to the absence of fans, fins, and dust, with consistent temperatures. DUG has commercialized their experience into the Nomad product line: a 10-foot container (150 kW heat rejection) and 40-foot container (1 MW), deployable in 3-4 months. Solidigm has produced the first fully qualified SSD for immersion cooling with full datasheet warranty coverage, eliminating previous requirements for underfill and overlay protection on components.