What’s Driving the Rise of Immersion Liquid‑Cooling in Smart Computing?

Forum Overview

On February 16‑17, 2023, the "2023 Immersion Liquid‑Cooling Smart Computing Industry Development Summit" was held in Quzhou, Zhejiang, marking the first offline event in two years. Around forty enterprises, including ODCC, Alibaba Cloud and OPPO, attended under the theme "Innovation Open·Ecology Co‑construction" to present the latest technical innovations and practical cases in immersion liquid‑cooling data centers.

Keynote Highlights

Alibaba Cloud Vice President Huang Haiqing delivered the keynote "Building Low‑Carbon Smart Computing Cloud Infrastructure," introducing Alibaba Cloud’s single‑phase immersion liquid‑cooling technology featuring a fully redundant, concurrently maintainable architecture that delivers high energy efficiency and high availability for general‑purpose cloud computing.

Joint Release of Nine Research Results

Alibaba Cloud and OPPO jointly announced nine technical research outcomes covering the entire lifecycle of immersion liquid‑cooling data centers, from construction and operation to heat‑recovery solutions.

Immersion liquid‑cooling material compatibility test specification

Immersion liquid‑cooling cabinet structural design specification

Immersion liquid‑cooling optical module reliability specification

Immersion liquid‑cooling server electronic assembly process whitepaper

Immersion liquid‑cooling server signal integrity test specification

Immersion liquid‑cooling centralized power‑supply technology whitepaper

Single‑phase immersion liquid‑cooling heat‑dissipation technology whitepaper

Immersion liquid‑cooling operation‑vehicle whitepaper

Immersion liquid‑cooling heat‑recovery whitepaper

Sub‑Forum Presentations

The sub‑forums "Energy‑Saving Low‑Carbon, Leading Green Future" and "Intelligent Drive, Leading Technology Innovation" featured five Alibaba Cloud experts:

Zhong Yangfan : Overview of Alibaba’s liquid‑cooling roadmap and industry‑wide strategy.

Liu Dan : Impact of liquid on end‑to‑end SI performance and the feasibility of high‑speed channel integration.

Liu Xiangdong : Definition of technical specifications for all components within a liquid‑cooling cabinet.

Li Xiaopeng : Challenges of server electronic assembly in immersion scenarios and related technology breakthroughs.

Lian Heng : Green, high‑reliability centralized power‑supply architecture derived from Alibaba’s immersion cooling experience.

Round‑Table Discussion

Experts from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, Chuangfu High‑Tech, OPPO, Alibaba Cloud, Intel and Foxconn discussed future opportunities and challenges for immersion liquid‑cooling smart‑computing centers, covering policy guidance, technological innovation, and practical deployment.

Industry Context and Achievements

Supported by recent data‑center policies and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s new‑type data‑center evaluations, immersion liquid‑cooling has seen extensive research and large‑scale adoption in China. In 2022, Alibaba Cloud’s single‑phase full‑immersion technology was listed in the "National Industrial and Information Technology Energy‑Saving Equipment Recommendation Catalog (2022 Edition)".

Since 2021, Alibaba Cloud’s liquid‑cooling research has been selected for three consecutive DesignCon conferences, covering signal integrity, high‑speed interconnect optimization, low‑cost PCB design, PCIe 5.0/6.0 and DDR5 integration, and long‑term reliability of components in fully immersed environments.

Awards and Recognition

The forum honored nine partners—including Intel, Foxconn, and others—with "Outstanding Partner" certificates. Alibaba Cloud’s liquid‑cooling solutions have also received multiple industry awards such as the 2021 CCSA Science & Technology Award (Second Prize) and the 2022 CDCC Data‑Center Technology Achievement First Prize.

Future Outlook

Alibaba Cloud commits to continuing technology‑driven collaboration with industry partners to expand the liquid‑cooling ecosystem, supporting greener data‑center construction and advancing energy‑saving, low‑carbon computing.