ZutaCore is back, and expects a breakthrough 2024
14 January, 2024
The company was hit by Hamas attack on October 7, but is now prepares to bring its innovative cooling systems to the most power-intesive datacenters
Photo above: Erez Freibach Co-founder and CEO (left), and Nahshon Eadelson, Co-founder and CTO of ZutaCore
Despite the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023, ZutaCore, located in the city of Sderot (2 miles from the Gaza strip), continued to operate and even resumed a fundraising round for the next generation of its groundbreaking datacenter’s cooling technology. Co-founder and CEO of ZutaCore, Erez Freibach, told Techtime that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) had already joined the capital raising, and also signed a distribution agreement. “A week and a half before the outbreak of war, Mitsubishi made the first investment of its commitment, and now we are preparing to complete additional fundraising in 2024.”
The company was founded in 2016 by Chief Technology Officer Nahshon Eadelson and by Erez Freibach based on an invention by Eadelson that optimized the use of dielectric liquid for cooling processors and servers. Its technology, HyperCool, has been certified for cooling both Intel and AMD processors. ZutaCore systems can be implemented in all data centers that operate these processors.
During Supercomputing (SC) conference in December 2023, ZutaCore demonstrated how it can handle very hot 1500 Watts processors, such as Dell’s 16G and Pegatron servers with 4th Generation Intel Xeon Processors and powerful SuperMicro Servers, being demonstrated by Boston Limited. Today, the company is in the process of receiving approval from one of the largest AI manufacturers in the world.
Security cameras recorded the attack
ZutaCore employs approximately 50 employees, including 40 in the R&D center operating from Sderot, and another 10 employees in its offices in California, Amsterdam and Taiwan. The staff in Israel are mostly residents of the Gaza envelope region such as Kfar Gaza, Be’eri, Sderot and the surrounding areas. Freibach, who was planning to celebrate his 60th birthday on October 7, discovered that the company’s offices and most of its employees were suddenly under attack. “Our office was hit by gunfire and our security cameras recorded the Hamas vehicles in the parking lot,” he said.
“For the first two weeks, we were not allowed to enter the building. After two weeks I joined a force of 12 fighters that cleared the area to make sure there were no terrorists. After the building was cleared, our team arrived and got back to work at the laboratories, yet heavy rocket barrages prevented a return to regular work. Half of our employees were evacuated from their homes and 10% of our employees were recruited into the military reserves, so we switched to working from home as we did during the Covid period.
“While our operations continued globally, only at the end of November did we return to full work in the offices in Israel. We have employees who survived the horrible attack and they were the first to return to work. The residents of the south are people with a special DNA. The company gives them an anchor of stability and hope. As early as the fourth day of the war, we initiated a weekly Zoom meeting with all our employees to share information, experiences, and expectations with each other and to discuss the issues related to work.”
How do investors and customers react to the situation?
“We received enormous support from them, including from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which issued a public statement of support for the company. We have been getting encouragement from all our investors and empathy and understanding from all of our customers. In the second week of the war, I went on a global journey around the world to physically meet all the customers and personally tell them that we were continuing to work and were fully committed to all the agreements signed with us. We received a great appreciation from them for our ability to function under these conditions. In fact, there were no order cancellations following the war.”
ZutaCore is at the core of one of the hottest markets in the industry today: cooling processors and servers in order to reduce the power consumption of data centers. This problem is getting worse every day due to the development of Cloud and Artificial Intelligence, which push the processors to reach very large capacities. For example, air cooling is suitable for use in processors working with powers of several tens of watts, while water cooling is suitable for processors with power of up to 600W. However, the industry currently requires power of up to 1500W which is driving the need for better, more sustainable cooling solutions. Freibach: “For every dollar they invest in processing, data centers spend another dollar on cooling.”
The vision: data centers without wasting energy
Eadelson has developed a unicque system based on a dielectric coolant which is safe to use and is attached to the processor through a cold plate that cools it directly. Through a special design of the cold plate, he was able to achieve a cooling efficiency that allows the liquid to boil at 34-35°C, thereby reducing the cost of cooling by 96%. ZutaCore condenses the liquid and produces hot water at a temperature of 70°C, which enables the reuse of energy. Today, there are many new markets looking to take advantage of this reuse of hot water such as homes, greenhouses, water desalination, electricity generation and more. According to Erez, “With ZutaCore technology, data centers can reach a state of almost zero energy waste.”
ZutaCore systems are backed by 20 patents, some of which are already registered and others in the pending process. The systems are produced through subcontractors in Israel. One of the goals of the capital raised is to prepare for a Global production infrastructure needed to support rapid growth. “Our solution is designed for the core of the data center’s activity, so it is impossible to be a small supplier. Our goal is to be a global leading manufacture in this field.”
The company is currently installing systems with large strategic partners, and expect to reach and sales of several hundred million dollars by 2027. ZutaCore has started a recruitment campaign, with the aim of increasing the number of employees by about 30% in the first phase during 2024. In the coming weeks, ZutaCore will start to recruit about 15 additional employees. Recently it has signed a cooperation agreement with ASUS for the integration of the ZutaCore cooling system in the servers of the Taiwanese company.
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