Intel Investing $700 Million to Build Data Center Research Lab

On Thursday, Intel announced two major investment plans aimed at creating more sustainable data center technology. The Santa Clara-based chip giant will spend more than $700 million to build a 200,000-square-foot R&D facility. Rather, the lab will address issues such as heat recovery and reuse, immersion cooling and water efficiency improvement.
Besides, the lab will test and validate Intel data center product lines from Xeon and Optane, as well as Agilex FGPA and Xe architecture products. Customers and partners will be able to tour the lab and see Intel products in running in a data center environment to assess their suitability for their operational needs.
The research lab is scheduled to open later this year on the Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro, Oregon. If all goes well, Intel’s expectation is that the project would be finished sometime in the second half of 2023.
In addition, the company disclosed the industry’s first reference design for an immersion cooling solution based on open IP. Intel hopes to simplify and accelerate the rollout of its immersion liquid cooling solution in the global market.Finally, Intel is developing a proof-of-concept with partners in Taiwan, and will follow a phased rollout, gradually expanding from local to other market regions.It should be pointed out that Intel is not the only technology giant interested in immersion liquid cooling technology. More than a year ago, Microsoft also announced that it was testing a “two-phase immersion” cooling scheme to avoid overheating of toaster-like servers.