Innovation Fridays - Advancing Data Centre Infrastructure

Discover cutting‑edge hardware innovations from Nanyang Technological University, spanning high‑bandwidth connectivity, power efficiency, and advanced thermal management solutions for next‑generation data centres.

From next‑generation solid‑state transformers and scalable multiscale structures to pioneering spray cooling and smart two‑phase chip‑level solutions, our technical presentations highlight practical engineering approaches to efficiency, scalability, and sustainability.

The programme concludes with an industry panel — Advancing Data‑Centre Systems Through Semiconductor and Photonics — exploring cross‑layer innovation spanning semiconductor processes, silicon photonics interconnects, and data‑centre hardware system integration.

End the day at our Innovation Showcase & Networking Lunch, where presenters will share more about their innovations and engage directly with attendees to answer questions.

Event Highlights:

• Next-Generation Solid-State Transformers and DC/DC Converters for Emerging Data Centers by Yun Yang
  This talk presents next-generation solid-state transformers (SSTs), including advanced two-stage architectures and a capacitor-free single-stage SST that eliminates bulky DC-link components. The proposed designs and control strategies significantly improve efficiency, power density, and system reliability. We will also showcase developed 800V/48V and 48V/1V transformerless DC-DC converters tailored for AI data center power delivery. In addition, AI-enhanced predictive control enables fast dynamic response and precise voltage regulation under highly variable workloads. The overall approach provides a scalable and practical pathway toward more efficient, high-density, and sustainable data center power infrastructures.
  
  
• Scalable Multiscale Structures for Energy-Efficient Thermal Technologies by Jin Yao Ho
  This talk presents a scalable multiscale structuring approach to enhance phase-change processes for improved energy efficiency across diverse engineering systems. By tailoring surface features from micro- to nano-scales, interfacial phenomena such as boiling, condensation, and frosting can be significantly intensified and controlled. These enhancements enable performance gains in applications ranging from two-phase cooling devices and battery thermal regulation to refrigerant-based air-conditioning and dehumidification systems. Emphasis is placed on scalable fabrication strategies that bridge fundamental transport mechanisms with real-world implementation. The work demonstrates a pathway to reduce energy consumption and improve efficiency across a broad spectrum of phase-change-driven technologies through multiscale structure designs.
  
  
• Chiller-free Two-Phase Spray Cooling of High-Density Data Centres using Dielectric Fluids by Teck Neng Wong
  Data centers in Singapore currently consume about 7% of the nation’s total electricity, and this demand is rising rapidly with the growth of cloud computing and AI workloads. Addressing their energy use and carbon footprint has become a pressing challenge. Conventional facilities rely heavily on air-cooling systems, which are increasingly inefficient at handling rising thermal loads.
  
  We propose an innovative spray cooling technique that significantly improves heat removal by leveraging convection, evaporation, and boiling. A non-conductive fluid is directly sprayed onto CPUs and other server components, enabling efficient thermal transfer at the source. The vaporized coolant is then condensed and recycled within a closed-loop system integrated into the rack. By using ambient-temperature water in the condensers, the system eliminates the need for energy-intensive chillers.

• Taming AI Heat with Smart, Stable Two-Phase Cooling by Tuan Tran
  AI and HPC chips operating under intense and rapidly changing workload create severe hotspots and thermal instability that conventional cooling approaches struggle to manage. This talk introduces NTU’s smart, stable two-phase cooling approach that combines high heat removal capability with active temperature stabilisation at the chip level. It will outline the core thermal challenge, the key advantage over existing cooling methods, and the potential applications of this technology across CPUs, GPUs, AI accelerators, photonics, and other wide-bandwidth hardware. 
  
  
• Technical Presentation by: Professor Brian Sia
  
  
• [Featured Industry Presentation] Composable AI Infrastructure with AMD Helios by Eu Gene GohThe presentation covers AMD’s datacenter strategy spotlighting Helios—a composable, unified platform that amplifies EPYC, Instinct, and adaptive accelerator resources to support both scale-up and scale-out deployments. Helios enables flexible pooling and orchestration of compute, memory, and accelerators with high-bandwidth PCIe Gen4/5, FPGA-based SmartNIC/DPU offload.
  
  
• [Industry Panel] Can Hardware Keep Up with AI? The Role of Semiconductors and Photonics