(Credit: Andrew Brookes / Connect Images via Getty Images)
It's no secret that AI data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity, but a surprising new solution has emerged to combat the problem: Lab-grown diamonds.
An undisclosed, US-based buyer—likely a tech company or data center developer—has placed a $300 million order for diamond-cooled AI servers, according to Akash Systems, the Peter Thiel-backed company that makes the tech.
The diamonds, which are not a typical gemstone shape, will act as a "new layer in the data center cooling stack," according to a company spokesperson. "The diamond component is integrated in a server in between the GPU and the heat sink."
The GPUs in this case are AMD's Instinct MI350X. The servers will be manufactured by Taiwan-based MiTAC Computing.
Diamonds help prevent heat loss and cool the stack, reducing electricity waste. They have "the highest thermal conductivity of any known material, removing heat five times faster than copper, the industry standard material for heat management," Akash Systems says. When applied to AI data centers, the goal is to enable them to "run throttle-free at higher ambient temperatures" and reduce power consumption.
(Credit: MiTAC Computing)"Together with MiTAC's global deployment capabilities, we're enabling data centers to realize impactful compute density and breakthrough energy efficiency," says Travis Karr, AMD's Corporate Vice President, Commercial and Enterprise for its AI business.
Akash declined to confirm when the diamond-encrusted chips will go into service or to provide a photo of the solution. The image below shows an Akash-built diamond-cooling plate, though it is "not exactly what's being integrated with the AMD GPUs," the company says.
Perhaps they will be more of a sheet or a blanket inside the chips, as IEEE Spectrum outlines in a report on the budding technology, an active area of research. One company, San Francisco-based Diamond Foundry, is working on making a thin layer of heat-dissipating diamond to attach to the back of the silicon wafers on which chips are built, The New York Times reports.
The company claims to have created "a new material" as well, which it says has already been deployed in satellite radios, making them 3x smaller and consuming 60% less power. Last month, the company announced the first shipment of diamond-cooled Nvidia GPUs to NxtGen, India's largest sovereign cloud provider. "Those are being put into action," the company says.
If you're wondering how a sheet of diamonds could possibly be affordable, Akash Systems claims to have a "robust supply chain for customized lab-grown diamonds" that are a "very different price point from mined diamonds." Theoretically, the energy cost savings would offset any potential additional cost.