this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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From what I recall, it stopped being a fad because outside of the cool factor, it was found to be horribly inefficient (cost/performance) at actually cooling the computer compared to air or water cooling.
I did the math on that a while back, and the one factor I don't hear anyone mention is that you have to cool the liquid/oil as well.
Like, sure, a tank of oil can capture a lot of heat - you could probably max out several GPUs. But once that oil gets hot, it's not going to take anymore heat away from the GPU, and it's going to take a long time for a tank full of oil to cool down enough to provide proper cooling.
You'd basically have to have an additional heat pump unit transferring heat from the oil to the air if you wanted to run things long term (like crypto or whatever). So you're basically just adding in an additional, unnecessary, very messy step.
Maybe datacenters should partner with fast food restaurant and use their waste heat to fry chicken nuggets.