IBM Aquasar: A supercomputer “chilled” with hot water…

PC enthusiasts looking to extract the maximum performance from their PC for daily use know that fans just won’t cut it. Besides taking up gobs of room and electricity to power them, air-cooled computers become louder the faster you push them. That’s where water cooling comes in. It can be a relatively cheap upgrade depending on how crazy and custom you get with it. Nevertheless, water cooling has plenty of advantages. Taking cues from its more personal computing siblings, IBM’s Aquasar super computer located at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich is a claimed “world’s first” hot water-cooled supercomputer. What may catch some as odd is that the Aquasar uses hot water to cool the necessary innards — a drastic departure from the typical cold-as-ice approach taken by civilian water coolers. Though it’s for a good reason. The hot water used to cool the computers is recycled from the facilities’ heating system. A very techy way to kill two birds with one stone.

It all goes to show just how resourceful we humans can be when presented with new challenges and a penchant for turning a few heads. Not to mention, the ever lingering quest for speed and power surely has something to do with it, wouldn’t you say? Coolest-Gadgets

Tags: aquastar heating ibm super computer pc water cooling