What will be in Viettel's super large-scale data center?

On April 23, the Military Industry and Telecommunications Group (Viettel) started construction of a data center with a “huge” scale compared to previous data infrastructures in Vietnam. For comparison, the largest data center in Vietnam, also developed by Viettel, has a capacity of 30MW. The total capacity of the data center at Tan Phu Trung Industrial Park will reach 182MW.

Viettel Data Center in Tan Phu Trung with a designed capacity of 140MW will be more than 4 times larger than the current largest data center and equal to about 3/4 of the total current capacity of Vietnam.

To achieve this capacity, the data center will own about 10,000 racks on a 4-hectare land area in Tan Phu Trung Industrial Park, Ho Chi Minh City. The special thing is that these racks are designed with a power density of 10kW/rack - 2.5 times higher than the current average of 4kW/rack in Vietnam.

Many racks are designed with a capacity of up to 60kW/rack - 15 times the average and a rare level in Asia - to meet the high-intensity computing needs of artificial intelligence (AI) models and high-performance computing (HPC). The rack capacity of the new data center is equivalent to AI facilities of Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud.

“The high-tech research and development data center project by Viettel Group located in Tan Phu Trung Industrial Park is one of the largest projects in the region,” said Mr. Vo Van Hoan, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee, at the groundbreaking ceremony on April 23.

Bigger scale but “greener”

Large scale and high power density come with high power consumption. Therefore, a key metric in data center operations is PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), which represents the ratio of total electricity consumed to the portion of electricity used directly for computing and data processing tasks. The ideal PUE is 1.0, indicating that 100% of the energy is used for data processing and no energy is wasted. According to a report from the Uptime Institute, the current global average is 1.57.

Viettel’s new data center in Tan Phu Trung is designed to achieve PUE ≤ 1.4 – exceeding the regional standard and also lower than all data centers in Vietnam today, helping to save electricity and reduce emissions. “Lower PUE reflects more efficient and environmentally friendly operations – which are increasingly important in the digital infrastructure industry ,” according to The Economist Intelligence Unit.

“Viettel’s digital infrastructure development strategy is linked to the principle of sustainable development. Each Viettel data center is designed to meet green standards - saving energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, using environmentally friendly materials and ready to integrate renewable energy,” said Major General Tao Duc Thang, Chairman and General Director of Viettel Group.

To achieve high efficiency, Viettel data center in Tan Phu Trung applies advanced cooling technologies, with the central system being a centrifugal magnetic cushion water-cooled chiller - using a centrifugal compressor with a rotating shaft suspended in space by magnetic force to reduce contact and reduce energy loss.

The rack cooling system includes Inrow Cooling - cooling right in the rack cabinets instead of cooling the entire room space, Reardoor Heat Exchanger - cold water pipes to absorb heat directly from hot air escaping behind the server and ready to integrate Liquid cooling - liquid cooling.

Combined, the system achieves high efficiency with a COP (Coefficient of Performance) of over 7 - meaning that each unit of electricity consumed can generate more than 7 units of cooling. Thanks to that, this system not only optimizes the cooling capacity for high-capacity racks up to 60kW/rack serving AI and supercomputers.

“Not simply a strategic decision in terms of infrastructure, Tan Phu Trung Data Center is also Viettel's long-term commitment to Ho Chi Minh City in a new development phase.

The implementation of the project also clearly demonstrates Viettel's spirit of urgent, serious and proactive action in effectively implementing Resolution No. 57 of the Politburo on breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation and national digital transformation by 2030, with a vision to 2045," said Major General Tao Duc Thang.

The project is part of Vietnam's digital infrastructure strategy, in line with the target of 870MW by 2030. As Southeast Asia increasingly becomes an investment destination for cloud giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, the emergence of large-scale data centers such as Tan Phu Trung will help Vietnam improve its regional competitiveness.

Ha An

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/trong-trung-tam-du-lieu-quy-mo-sieu-lon-cua-viettel-se-co-gi-ar939864.html