Podcast #152: Data Center Thermal Dynamics and Cooling Architectures With Tim Shedd
StorageReview, Thursday, August 27th, 2026
Thermal expert Tim Shedd on data center liquid cooling from HPC origins to enterprise AI deployments.
StorageReview interviews thermal management specialist Tim Shedd about data center cooling technologies, tracing the lineage from historical Cray systems to modern Dell PowerEdge servers.
The conversation covers single-phase direct-to-chip cooling, negative-pressure systems, two-phase architectures, and the continued relevance of air cooling.
Topics include cold plate design, contamination management, standardization challenges across vendors, and how regional environmental factors shape facility operations.
The through-line is that optimizing thermal physics and manufacturing practice is what makes high-density accelerator workloads deployable.