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Some AI servers are designed to operate without server fans in their cooling path, but “liquid-cooled” alone does not mean “fanless.” HPE’s Cray Supercomputing EX2500 is identified as using 100% fanless direct liquid cooling, and Lenovo describes full-system direct-water configurations of its ThinkSystem SD650 V3 and SD665-N V3 as fanless. Other liquid-cooled systems, including Dell’s PowerEdge XE9780L, should not be called fanless unless the exact configuration confirms it.
What “fanless” means in an AI server
Fanless describes how heat is removed from the server, not whether the entire data center has no moving parts. A fanless direct liquid cooling (DLC) design uses liquid across the relevant heat-producing parts of the system so server fans are not needed for that cooling path. Pumps, coolant distribution units (CDUs), and facility equipment may still be required.
Coverage matters. HPE describes a fanless DLC architecture spanning eight layers: GPU, CPU, blade, storage, network fabric, rack or cabinet, pod or cluster, and CDU. Lenovo describes its full-system direct-water approach as covering all components, including power supplies. These are vendor descriptions of their architectures, not evidence that every product configuration covers every listed component.
How fanless DLC differs from other cooling approaches
| Approach | How heat is handled | What to expect at the server |
|---|---|---|
| Fanless direct liquid cooling | Liquid removes heat across a broad portion of the system; coverage depends on the design. | Designed to avoid server fans for the covered cooling path. Pumps and facility cooling equipment may remain necessary. |
| Hybrid direct liquid cooling | Cold plates cool selected components while air cooling remains part of the design. | Server fans are retained. |
| Liquid-to-air cooling | A heat exchanger uses chilled facility water to cool server air. | Liquid is used in the heat exchanger, but this does not by itself make the server fanless. |
| Immersion cooling | Equipment is cooled by immersion in a liquid-based system. | A related integration option; the cited vendor material does not establish that its named immersion systems are fanless AI servers. |
HPE’s solution page states capacities of up to 400 kW per rack for its fanless DLC approach and up to 200 kW per rack for hybrid DLC. These are HPE figures, not universal rack limits; an actual deployment depends on the server configuration and supporting facility infrastructure.
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Which named AI servers are described as fanless?
The available vendor descriptions cover different system types and do not make them interchangeable. Treat cooling mode as a configuration-level question, not a conclusion based only on a product family name.
| System | What the vendor material establishes | Fanless status to use carefully |
|---|---|---|
| HPE Cray Supercomputing EX2500 | HPE’s solution overview labels it as using 100% fanless DLC. The EX family is associated with scientific research, simulation, large-scale deep-learning training, and predictive analytics. | Identified as fanless in that overview; confirm the current blade and system configuration. |
| HPE Cray Supercomputing EX4000 | HPE’s overview describes it as a large-scale system. | The cited description does not establish fanless operation for every configuration; verify the exact blade configuration. |
| HPE ProLiant Compute XD685 | An eight-GPU, 5U system described as optimized for NLP, LLM, and multimodal training, with DLC available as an option. | DLC is optional; the cited description does not establish that the system is inherently fanless. |
| Lenovo ThinkSystem SD650 V3 and SD665-N V3 Neptune | Lenovo describes its full-system direct-water method as cooling all components, including power supplies, for fanless operation. | Fanless applies to the specified full-system cooling mode; verify that the selected model and configuration use it. |
| Dell PowerEdge XE9780L | Dell markets it as a liquid-cooled AI server and lists configurations with eight NVIDIA HGX B300 GPUs or eight HGX B200 GPUs. | The cited product description does not establish a fanless configuration. Call it liquid-cooled unless the exact configuration confirms otherwise. |
What the published energy and capacity figures do—and do not—show
HPE’s October 10, 2024 announcement states that fanless DLC reduces cooling power required per server blade by 37% compared with hybrid DLC alone. The announcement also quotes HPE CEO Antonio Neri attributing a 90% reduction in cooling power consumption to the architecture compared with traditional air-cooled systems. Both are vendor claims with different comparison baselines; neither is an independent, cross-vendor test or a guarantee of whole-facility savings.
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Likewise, rack capacity figures describe a cooling approach under suitable supporting conditions; they are not a promise that any rack or building can accept that heat load. Ask the vendor to define the system boundary, workload, configuration, and facility assumptions behind any energy or density claim.
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Evaluate the server and the facility as one thermal system. A broad liquid-cooling label does not answer whether the proposed configuration meets your workload, heat-rejection, service, or operating requirements.
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- Match the compute configuration to the workload. Specify the accelerator model and count, CPU, memory, networking, software support, and target workload. The examples above range from an eight-GPU 5U training system to rack-scale supercomputing systems, so model names alone are not a meaningful performance comparison.
- Get a component-level cooling map. Ask which GPUs, CPUs, memory, storage, power supplies, and other components are liquid-cooled, which retain air cooling, and whether the exact bill of materials is designed to operate without server fans.
- Size rack-level heat rejection and the CDU. Confirm required flow, facility-water temperature, CDU capacity, heat-rejection method, and redundancy for the proposed load. Ensure rack, cabinet, and any pod or cluster design match the selected cooling approach.
- Confirm facility readiness. Have the supplier document water and power requirements, connection points, operating limits, monitoring, alarms, and how the design behaves during a cooling-system fault or maintenance event.
- Agree on service and monitoring. Establish who services the liquid loop and CDU, how leaks or abnormal temperatures are detected, which components are field-replaceable, and what monitoring data is available to operators.
- Compare economics on the same basis. Request measured whole-system energy and total cost for the same workload, including server and facility cooling boundaries. The cited vendor materials do not provide a comparable independent multi-vendor test of energy, acoustics, reliability, water use, or total cost.
What is not established by the available product claims
A fanless server does not establish that a data center will be silent, pump-free, or free of other mechanical equipment. Nor do vendor-specific energy claims establish a universal savings percentage. The available sources do not provide a comparable independent test across vendors for operating energy, acoustics, reliability, water use, or total cost, so those outcomes must be validated against the buyer’s own workload and facility design.
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