ASHRAE is an international society of more than 50,000 heating, refrigerating and air-conditioning professionals from over 132 nations dedicated to serving humanity and promoting a sustainable world.
The alliance was propelled by individuals that span both organizations because of the shared scope of data center cooling environments and sustainability, where at ASHRAE, this is particularly its Technical Committee 9.9 (TC 9.9), “Mission Critical Facilities, Data Centers, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment.”
As the power and thermal management of AI systems reshape data center IT equipment and the facilities that house it, the OCP Community’s innovative open data center specifications and ASHRAE’s cooling standards intersect in areas from the facilities—technology cooling system (TCS) and facility water system (FWS) coolant loops—to the IT equipment—direct-to-chip or immersion cooling—and various interconnecting technologies and intermediate systems like in-row or in-rack coolant distribution units (CDUs). This chain of cooling technologies has considerations in common between OCP and ASHRAE TC 9.9, such as impact on power usage effectiveness (PUE) and sustainability.