The German distributed data centre company Cloud&Heat Technologies has announced that its containerised products will in future be mass-produced in the Czech Republic by TradeDX, the local subsidiary of Chinese manufacturing giant Foxconn, in order to meet growing demand for its products.
Cloud&Heat’s products typically run an OpenStack cloud implementation, with a cooling system designed to reuse waste heat. Up to now, the entire product had been built by Cloud&Heat near Dresden, but now TradeDX will create the outer shells, with Cloud&Heat installing the IT and cooling systems.
Chinese company Foxconn was established in the Czech Republic in 2016 with a data centre joint venture called SafeDX. The company set up the container-making division in 2017.
Cloud&Heat’s containers use CPU and GPU servers, with up to 1,440 GPUs per unit. Two models are available, using air- or water-cooling. Both models allow for re-use of the waste heat produced, but Cloud&Heat says the potential for heat reuse is greater with the water-cooled model, which circulates water at 60C – hot enough to be used in heating buildings.
The TradeDX factory can produce up to 240 containers per year, and Cloud&Heat has an agreement to sell and supply this many units.
“This cooperation is an important milestone in the development of Cloud&Heat from a former start-up to a globally operating company,” said Nicolas Röhrs, CEO of Cloud&Heat Technologies.