Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella announced on social media that his team has achieved 

a major breakthrough: a new liquid cooling method using microfluidics, which opens the door to 

more efficient, sustainable, and denser data centers than traditional methods.

This liquid cooling technology, which embeds coolant directly into the chip, claims to be 2-3 times 

more effective than traditional cold plate technology. If this technology becomes widely used in 

practice, it will not only be a technological marvel but also potentially revolutionize everything from

 chip design to data center layout.

In-chip microfluidics

Microsoft calls this technology in-chip microfluidics. Its core lies in etching micron-scale channels 

on the back of the chip, resembling the fine network of human hair. A specially formulated, low-viscosity 

coolant flows through these channels, directly reaching the source of heat on the chip, removing it and

 dissipating the heat.

Sashi Majety, senior technical program manager for Microsoft's Cloud Operations and Innovation department,

 revealed that laboratory tests show that microfluidic heat removal is 2-3 times more efficient than cold plates,

 reducing the peak temperature rise of the GPU silicon core by 65%. This means that the chip can operate stably

 at high frequencies, avoiding overheating and frequency throttling. More importantly, it has the potential to

 improve power usage effectiveness (PUE) by 20%-30%, directly reducing data center operating costs.