NTT Com Asia, a data center and network service provider, has partnered with Dell Technologies to launch an On Demand High Performance Computing (HPC) service in Hong Kong, targeting companies that require large amounts of computationally intensive artificial intelligence workloads.

This collaboration includes integrating NTT Com Asia’s direct liquid cooled data center infrastructure and management services with Dell’s advanced computing technology.

The two companies stated that the new HPC as a service product will include host hosting, infrastructure hosting, computing servers, and hosting services based on customer needs. The company stated that using NTT Com’s liquid cooling infrastructure will allow for the deployment of high-performance computing exceeding 50 kilowatts per rack, approximately twice the computing density allowed by air-cooled computer racks.

This service is aimed at enterprises in the fields of life sciences, manufacturing, finance, artificial intelligence and analysis, IT and software development, research, and warehouse management. NTT Com Asia and Dell also pointed out that on-demand high-performance computing services can cater to companies that need to scale computing resources to meet peak project workloads or short-term growth.

NTT Com Asia cited a report from Cushman&Wakefield in January stating that by 2028, demand for data centers in Southeast Asia and North Asia (including Hong Kong) will grow at an annual rate of over 25%. This demand is driven by the wave of generative artificial intelligence, as well as the demand for more data processing capabilities from cloud computing and enterprise demands.

Both NTT Com and Dell claim that their new services are powered by liquid cooling infrastructure and may save costs for customers.

These companies did not provide price information or comparative data to support their claims. Although liquid cooling infrastructure has higher operational efficiency and can better utilize data center space, the upfront costs of these systems are higher than those of air-cooled systems, and their lifecycle impacts are still being studied. “Unlike air cooling, there is currently no consensus in the industry on how to achieve concurrent maintainability or fault tolerance in DLC environments,” wrote Uptime Institute, an IT and data center research company, in a report last year