In the future of computing, IBM is attempting to demonstrate that water, not air, is the best way to cool the tiniest components of the data center.

At a technical conference June 5, IBM, along with researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin, will demonstrate a new system of cooling microprocessors by <A HREF="http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Infrastructure/IBM-Developing-Water-Cooling-for-Chips/?kc=EWKNLNAV060608STR2">piping water directly into the chip</A> instead of the more conventional method of using air to remove heat and cool a system.

As microprocessors become smaller and smaller, and as companies such as IBM, Intel and others add more processing cores and capabilities to the next generation of chips, the amount of heat these processors produce also becomes greater. The thrust of the IBM research is to find a better way to remove heat at the chip level, which will also have an effect on the amount of power used in the data center.