Recently, Taybo, in collaboration with a renowned semiconductor company in Shanghai, completed a liquid cooling retrofitting project for high-density computing equipment targeting a global top-tier service provider — successfully achieving a smooth upgrade from the original air-cooled server room to a liquid cooling architecture, while seamlessly accommodating the operational requirements of high-power equipment.
This is not just a routine technical upgrade, but a representative case of:
Legacy Data Center, New Computing Power: A Model Integration Upgrade Why must we transition from air cooling to liquid cooling?
Why must we transition from air cooling to liquid cooling?
We have found in actual projects that:
Air cooling limit ≈ 10 kW/rack
High-density equipment 50 kW+
High energy consumption, difficult to optimize PUE
Severe local hotspots, increased stability risks
Without switching to liquid cooling, high-performance devices simply cannot run at all
Typical Scenario: How to Accommodate High-Power Equipment?
In a typical air-to-liquid cooling upgrade project for a semiconductor client, we delivered a successful transformation.
Project Features
Original server room:
Traditional air-cooling architecture
Newly added equipment:
Palladium Z3 (liquid-cooled high-density device)
X3 (high-power air-cooled device)
Retrofit objectives:
Achieve a smooth upgrade without demolishing and rebuilding.
Core solution: hybrid architecture combining air cooling and liquid cooling
Air-cooling system: maximize reuse of existing infrastructure
Retain the original cold aisle
Add 4 EC variable air volume underfloor fans
Airflow per fan: 3,000 m³/h
Cooling capacity per fan: 12 kW
Adapt to air-cooled devices such as X3
Liquid cooling system: customized for Z3
The core issue with Palladium Z3 is:
The cooling demand per rack is as high as 42.3 kW+
Our solution:
CDU (Coolant Distribution Unit) + chilled water system
Primary side: connected to the facility chilled water supply
Secondary side: connected to the server liquid cooling loop
Cooling medium: propylene glycol (PG25)
Key Parameters:
Supply water temperature: 22℃
Return water temperature: 29℃
Flow rate: 45–54 LPM
CDU power: 1.1 kW
Achieve coordinated cooling with liquid cooling and air cooling.
Hybrid cooling strategy
The Z3 is not “fully liquid-cooled”; rather:
Air cooling handles part of the thermal load
Liquid cooling handles the core thermal load
Advantages:
Reduce retrofit costs
Improve system redundancy
Easier to implement
Not just cooling: power & safety are equally critical
High-power power supply design
X3: 37 kW
Total power: 87.1 kW
Retrofit scope:
Customer’s top concern: liquid cooling safety design
We focused on implementing three layers of safeguards:
Water collection tray design
Leak detection cable
Integrated into the DCIM/environmental monitoring system
Achieving: monitoring, early warning, and control capabilities.
What we have solved is more than just a single project
The significance of this case lies in:
