I've been hearing this line for over a decade, now. "Immersion cooling will make data centers scale!" "Converting to DC at the perimeter increases density!"

Yes, of course both of those things are true, and yes, some data centers do engage in those processes for their unique advantages. The issue is that aside from specialty kit designed for that use (like the AWS Outposts with their DC conversion), the rank-and-file kit is still predominantly AC-driven, and that doesn't seem to be changing just yet.

While I'd love to see more DC-flavored kit accessible to the mainstream, it's a chicken-and-egg problem that neither the power vendors (APC, Eaton, etc) or the kit makers (Dell, Cisco, HP, Supermicro, etc) seem to want to take the plunge on first. Until then, this remains a niche-feature for niche-users deal, I wager.

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otterley 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Those vendors all have DC power supply options, to my knowledge. It’s hardly new; early telco datacenters had DC power rails, since Western Electric switching equipment ran on 48VDC.

https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/publications-and-media/publi...

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stego-tech 6 hours ago | parent [-]

That’s just it though, telco DCs != Compute DCs. Telcos had a vested interest in DC adoption because their wireline networks used it anyway, and the fewer conversions being done the more efficient their deployments were.

Every single DC I’ve worked in, from two racks to hundreds, has been AC-driven. It’s just cheaper to go after inefficiencies in consumption first with standard kit than to optimize for AC-DC conversion loss. I’m not saying DC isn’t the future so much as I’ve been hearing it’s the future for about as long as Elmo’s promised FSD is coming “next year”.

	▲	jacquesm 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I think the real reason is because battery power didn't have to be converted twice to be able to run the gear in case of an outage, so you'd get longer runtime in case of a power failure, and it saves a bunch of money on supplies and inverters because you effectively only need a single giant supply for all of the gear and those tend to be more efficient (and easier to keep cool) than a whole raft of smaller ones.

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gizmo686 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

At least for servers, power supplies are highly modular. It just takes 1 moderately sized customer to commit to buying them, and a DC module will appear.

Looking at the manual for the first server line that came to mind, you can buy a Dell PowerEdge R730 today with a first party support DC power supply.

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arijun 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Surely if it makes sense for the big players, they will do it, and then the benefits will trickle down to the rest? Like how Formula 1 technology will end up in consumer vehicles.