Green IT Cube

Innovative and energy-efficient: The "Green IT Cube", a data-center in the form of a cube measuring 27×30×22 m³ with six floors and an adjacent technical building including cooling towers.

The Green IT Cube has been constructed at the campus of GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung to provide storage and computing power for the future international particle accelerator facility FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research).

The Green IT Cube has been planned in several expansion phases. In each phase two floors will be constructed. The Green IT Cube is currently in the first expansion stage.

In the first stage, the Green IT Cube has a cooling capacity of four megawatts, which will rise to twelve megawatts in the final expansion phase. The water cooling used in the rear doors of the server cabinets is highly efficient and requires less than 7% of the electrical power of the IT equipment.

Each floor provides space for 128 racks with 47 RU. In the final stage there will be space for 768 racks in total

The central computing room of the Green IT Cube is constructed similar to a high bay warehouse, in which racks and intermediate floors are installed.

The high bay warehouse system and the shape of the building allow for three-dimensional cabling between the racks for shorter cable distances.

The waste heat of the racks is used to heat the canteen and office building, which is also located on the GSI/FAIR campus

A time-lapse video about the construction of the Green IT Cube can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j93R0kORA9c