Innovative technology and immense amounts of data —Open Data Center Day at the Green IT Cube of GSI/FAIR
09.11.2026 |
For the fourth time, GSI/FAIR opened their doors to the high-performance data center Green IT Cube on the occasion of Open Data Center Day (TdoRZ). Under the slogan “Where does the internet actually live?!”, 56 participants took the opportunity to learn about the data center’s highly sustainable and energy-efficient technology and its scientific applications during guided tours.
Inside the data center there was much to discover: Guests interested in technology learned about the innovative technology of the Green IT Cube, which has already won numerous awards and has been recognized with the Blue Angel, the German government's environmental label, for its environmental friendliness. At the same time they got an impression of how the immense amounts of data from physical experiments are processed.
The Green IT Cube uses a special cooling system in which the generated heat is dissipated through water cooling on the racks’ back doors, and supplies heat to the adjacent office and canteen building. By forgoing complex cooling of the high-volume room air and using the novel water-cooling system, the energy required for cooling is reduced to about one tenth compared to conventional data centers (Power Usage Effectiveness PUE≈1.07). At half the floor height, the computer cabinets can be arranged much more densely, as in a high-bay warehouse, which reduces investment costs.
The Green IT Cube is available for storing and processing measurement data from experiments with the particle accelerator and for simulations and will also provide the necessary capacities for the future research center FAIR (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research), which is currently under construction at GSI. Furthermore, the Green IT Cube hosts the so-called Digital Open Lab, a living laboratory that provides an environment for the development, testing and upscaling of energy-efficient high-performance computing to the scale of industrial demonstrators.
The TdoRZ under the motto “Where does the internet actually live?!” is organized by the German Datacenter Association (GDA), the interest group representing the data center industry in Germany. 21 data centers from 18 operators in Germany opened their doors. Interested visitors had the opportunity to take guided tours to learn about the function of data centers and their importance for modern life. (CP)
