Modular and Transferable Machine Learning for Heat Management and Reuse in Edge Data Centers

This study investigates the use of transfer learning and modular design for adapting a pretrained model to optimize energy efficiency and heat reuse in edge data centers while meeting local conditions, such as alternative heat management and hardware configurations. A Physics-Informed Data-Driven Recurrent Neural Network (PIDD RNN) is trained on a small scale-model experiment of a six-server data center to control cooling fans and maintain the exhaust chamber temperature within safe limits. The model features a hierarchical regularizing structure that reduces the degrees of freedom by connecting parameters for related modules in the system. With a RMSE value of 1.69, the PIDD RNN outperforms both a conventional RNN (RMSE: 3.18), and a State Space Model (RMSE: 2.66). We investigate how this design facilitates transfer learning when the model is fine-tuned over a few epochs to small dataset from a second set-up with a server located in a wind tunnel. The transferred model outperforms a model trained from scratch over hundreds of epochs.Funding: Vinnova through the Celtic Next project AI-NET Aniara with project-ID C2019/3-2