A first: Cool supercomputer = warm dorms

A first-of-its-kind water-cooled supercomputer will send out its excess heat to warm buildings on the campus of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH).

The ETH and IBM today announced plans for the innovative system — “Aquasar” — which is expected to decrease the carbon footprint of the institute by up to 85 per cent. That’s equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 30 tonnes a year.

Set to begin operation in 2010, Aquasar is expected to reduce overall energy consumption by up to 40 per cent. The system is based on long-term joint research of ETH and IBM scientists in the field of chip-level cooling as well as on a concept for “water-cooled data centers with direct energy re-use” invented by scientists at IBM’s Zurich Lab.

The water-cooled supercomputer will have a peak performance of about 10 teraflops.