April 28, 2024

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From left: Iceotope CEO David Craig, SKT Vice President Lee Jong-min and SK Enmove Vice President Seo Sang-hyuk pose in their partnership agreement ceremony held on the sidelines of MWC 2024 in Barcelona, Spain, on Tuesday. (SKT)

SK Telecom said Wednesday it had teamed up with Iceotope Technologies, a precision liquid cooling firm in Britain, and its sister firm SK Enmove to develop a liquid cooling solution with high energy efficiency for artificial intelligence data centers.

The leading mobile carrier in Korea said it has signed a partnership agreement with Iceotope and SK Enmove, a base oil and lubricants provider affiliated to SK Group to come up with a data center air conditioning and cooling system to cut large power consumption. The signing ceremony was held on the sidelines of MWC 2024, a global connectivity tech show, in Barcelona, Spain.

Under the agreement, the three firms will collaborate to deploy Precision Liquid Cooling, using SK Enmove's thermal fluid at the testbed of SKT's AI Data Center, the company said. Iceotope's PLC technology uses a precise delivery of dielectric fluid to remove heat from the hottest components of the server, thereby significantly reducing energy consumption, the company explained.

The mobile carrier also said it would develop an integrated Coolant Distribution Unit to support various liquid cooling systems with the technical support of Iceotope.

"By combining core technologies and capabilities of SKT, Iceotope, and SK Enmove, we expect to develop innovative energy efficiency solutions that can not only help us strengthen our competitiveness in AI data centers but also put us on the right path towards sustainability," said Lee Jong-min, vice president and head of future R&D at SKT.

David Craig, Iceotope CEO, also welcomed the partnership.

"We are thrilled to be collaborating with SKT and SK Enmove on AI data center innovation and look forward to helping them and their customers to realize energy efficiency in their facilities with our Precision Liquid Cooling solutions," Craig said.

SK Enmove Vice President and Head of e-Fluids B2B Business Office Seo Sang-hyuk also said, "Through this cooperation, we aim to contribute to the vitalization of the immersion cooling market and solidify our position as an Energy Saving Company."

SKT's next plan is to develop an AI-based autonomous cooling system. The AI Autonomous Cooling System will analyze the temperature and power load in the AI data center, and automatically control the supply temperature and flow rate of thermal fluids in the CDUs to increase the operational efficiency of the AI data center, the company said.

According to TrendForce, a market tracker, the global demand for AI servers is expected to nearly triple in the coming years, growing from 1.2 million units in 2023 to 3.47 million units in 2027.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)