Yesterday, Huawei made a major move in Wuhu, Anhui Province.
At the AIDC (AI Data Center) Industry Development Conference, they unveiled the world's first 3D data center.
Huawei attached great importance to this launch. Senior executives, including Wang Tao, Vice Chairman and Rotating Chairman of Huawei, and Ren Shulu, Senior Vice President and Standing Supervisor of Huawei (Ren Zhengfei's younger brother), attended the event in person to deliver speeches.
What exactly is this 3D data center? How does it differ from traditional data centers? And why is Huawei placing such high importance on it?
Next, Xiao Zao Jun will provide a detailed breakdown for everyone.
█ What Is a 3D Data Center?
Strictly speaking, this 3D data center is not a completely new product or technology, but rather a new design and concept.
Traditional data centers are 2D (two-dimensional), adopting a "flat spread" layout model. In other words, hardware facilities such as servers, network equipment, and storage equipment are housed in one building, while power supply, cooling, and backup power equipment are located in separate buildings.
The 3D data center breaks through the 2D flat layout mindset by constructing a vertical four-layer 3D stacking architecture. From bottom to top, the layers are the cooling layer, IT equipment layer, power supply layer, and backup power (battery) layer.
This design vertically stacks the various functional spaces that are traditionally deployed horizontally in data centers, achieving vertical layering and physical isolation of each system.
█ Why Shift from 2D to 3D?
The broader context, simply put, is AI.
The AI wave continues to surge, with large models entering the era of ten-trillion parameters, leading to an explosive expansion in computing cluster sizes. A few years ago, discussions centered on clusters with thousands or tens of thousands of accelerators; today, clusters with hundreds of thousands of accelerators are set to become the standard.
Previous data centers adopted a 2D flat layout because of low equipment density and small scale. A loosely distributed design was used, which made management simple, maintenance convenient, and construction easy.
Today, when facing large-scale, high-power, and high-heat-dissipation AI computing clusters, traditional 2D data centers are beginning to expose various problems.
First, the footprint is too large, and the space utilization rate is too low.
Deploying primary IT equipment, power supply, cooling, and backup power equipment separately results in a massive footprint and excessively low space utilization. This was not a major issue for traditional general computing centers, which had fewer cabinets and lower equipment density. However, for intelligent computing centers with large-scale equipment, such a loose and extensive design wastes too much space and contradicts the concept of intensive construction.
Second, the excessive distance between various systems leads to lengthy cables and signal attenuation.
Overly long cables and pipelines increase construction and material costs, while also bringing higher O&M difficulty and failure risks.
Third, cooling efficiency is low, posing significant heat dissipation challenges.
AI servers have extremely high power density. While a rack of traditional general computing equipment used to consume several kilowatts, it now easily reaches tens or even hundreds of kilowatts. The longer the cooling pipelines, the greater the cooling capacity loss, naturally resulting in decreased cooling efficiency.
In addition to the above issues, traditional 2D data centers face bottlenecks in equipment expansion, construction cycles, and safety fault tolerance. Therefore, for future large-scale intelligent computing, a complete revolution in data center design and construction methods is required to fundamentally resolve these pain points.
█ What Are the Advantages of a 3D Data Center?
Huawei's newly released 3D data center completely rewrites the construction logic of traditional data centers. With its 3D layered architecture, full-process prefabricated construction, and integrated collaborative design of computing, power, and cooling, it provides a comprehensive new infrastructure solution tailored for large-scale intelligent computing.
Let us first look at the specific design of the four layers.
The first layer (cooling layer) centrally deploys full-domain liquid cooling equipment to provide stable and efficient heat dissipation support for the computing equipment above. Relying on a vertical short-distance heat dissipation path, it eliminates the energy waste associated with traditional flat heat dissipation.
The second layer (IT computing layer) core-deploys computing equipment such as Ascend AI servers, serving as the core computing output carrier of the data center. Currently, it is mainly equipped with the Ascend Super Node series products, which can support the deployment of high-density computing clusters.
The third layer (power supply layer) centrally arranges power supply modules and power distribution equipment. Being adjacent to the computing layer shortens the power supply link, significantly reducing power transmission losses.
The fourth layer (backup power layer) independently deploys backup power equipment such as battery modules on the roof, completely isolating flammable and explosive energy storage equipment, thereby enhancing data center security at the architectural root.
Those familiar with semiconductor chips may have already realized that this is very similar to the currently popular 3D packaging technology. By vertically stacking different functional layers, it not only significantly saves footprint but also makes the transmission paths for signals and energy extremely short, achieving a dual leap in both efficiency and security.
Therefore, some say this 3D data center is an amplified version of Huawei's Tau Scaling Law. Through a compact structure, it achieves the intensification of the data center, reducing construction and O&M costs.
The entire data center is also like an enlarged modular computer room, highly integrating cooling, power supply, backup power, and computing units to achieve "Lego-style" rapid assembly and flexible expansion.
We can summarize the advantages of the 3D data center as follows:
First, it enhances computing power carrying capacity and overall energy efficiency.
Relying on the advantages of vertical short-distance transmission, Huawei's 3D data center significantly optimizes the power and cooling transmission links. Data shows that the power supply distance from the power module to the cabinet is shortened from the traditional 17 meters to 5 meters, greatly reducing line power loss, while the IT power supply capacity leaps from 76MW to 168MW.
The computing power carrying capacity of the data center is upgraded twofold, easily supporting the deployment of ultra-large-scale AI computing clusters with hundreds of thousands of accelerators, and adapting to the parallel training and high-speed inference requirements of large models with hundreds of billions or trillions of parameters.
In terms of heat dissipation, the architecture achieves precise zonal temperature control. It uses precise liquid cooling for high-heat equipment in the IT computing layer and differential temperature control for low-heat equipment such as the power supply layer, eliminating energy waste from overcooling. Compared with traditional data centers, the energy efficiency ratio is significantly optimized, achieving a dual balance of high-density computing power and low-carbon energy saving.
Second, it achieves an ultra-high prefabrication rate, facilitating rapid delivery.
Traditional data centers adopt an on-site serial construction model, with electromechanical delivery cycles reaching up to 6 months. The overall construction process is tedious and the cycle is uncontrollable.
Huawei's 3D data center reconstructs the construction model by moving all assembly, testing, and debugging of core electromechanical modules to the factory in advance. On-site work only requires standardized assembly and docking, achieving an industry breakthrough with an electromechanical prefabrication rate exceeding 90%.
Relying on the standardized prefabrication system, its electromechanical delivery cycle is compressed from 6 months to 3 months, and the overall project achieves a standardized closed-loop delivery in 9 months, doubling the efficiency compared to the traditional model.
Third, it enhances safety protection and reduces operational risks.
The layered isolation architecture fundamentally enhances the fault tolerance of the data center. The system divides the power supply and cooling systems according to independent POD units. A failure in a single POD's equipment can be precisely isolated without spreading to the entire domain, minimizing the risk of computing power interruption.
Meanwhile, the independent backup power layer on the data center roof adopts multiple safety designs, including explosion-proof structures, multi-level smoke and temperature detection, pack-level precise fire extinguishing, directional explosion relief, and accident exhaust ventilation. This builds a comprehensive and three-dimensional energy storage safety protection system, significantly reducing safety hazards.
Fourth, it facilitates product iteration and renovation.
The iteration speed of AI chips and computing hardware is extremely fast. Once built, traditional data center infrastructure is difficult to renovate, easily leading to the lagging problem of "infrastructure failing to keep up with hardware iteration."
Huawei's 3D data center adopts a decoupled design of infrastructure and computing equipment. The IT computing layer can directly replace the new generation of AI hardware without renovating the main architecture, pipelines, and electromechanical systems of the computer room. This significantly reduces hardware iteration costs and cycles, perfectly adapting to the compatible deployment needs of multi-generational AI chips, and endowing the data center with long-term computing power evolution capabilities.
Fifth, it extremely simplifies O&M, shifting from passive repair to proactive prevention.
At the O&M level, Huawei's 3D data center achieves multi-domain zonal management, coupled with AI intelligent inspection, real-time equipment status monitoring, and an active early warning system for abnormal behaviors. This drives the O&M model from passive fault repair to proactive prevention, significantly lowering the threshold for manual O&M and the risk of misoperations, thereby enhancing the long-term operational stability of the computing center.
█ Conclusion
Currently, Huawei has completed the strategic layout of 3D data centers in the three major computing hubs: Wuhu in Anhui, Guizhou, and Inner Mongolia.
Among them, the Huawei Cloud Wuhu 3D Data Center, as the world's first implemented project, has completed full-process delivery and production, capable of stably supporting core businesses such as large-scale AI large model training, intelligent inference, and cloud computing.
At the launch event, many peers in the data center industry chain expressed their thoughts on the future evolution direction of AIDC. As data centers enter the era of large-scale intelligent computing, what exactly will the future form of AIDC look like? To answer this question, a brand-new solution that can break through traditional architectural bottlenecks while balancing high efficiency and security is indeed required.
In addition to hardware architecture innovation, Huawei also simultaneously released the monograph "3D Data Center" and opened the "3D Data Center Outline Design Library" at the launch event. They joined hands with the Global Computing Alliance, the China Electronics Standardization Institute, and dozens of industry chain partners to jointly promote the construction of 3D data center industry standards. Simply put, they have contributed the blueprints, which is equivalent to open-sourcing the technology, allowing everyone to use it as a reference.
In summary, the transformation of traditional data centers into new standardized, modular, intelligent, and low-carbon data centers is an inevitable trend. The 3D data center released by Huawei this time actually sets an example for the industry.
In the future, whether intelligent computing centers will present new evolution trends is worthy of our close attention.