Cadence Enhances Data Center Digital Twins with NVIDIA Omniverse

Companies across all industries are beginning to harness the power of simulation to develop new products, enhance customer experience, and unlock operational efficiencies. Digital twins, connected models and simulations of industrial assets, processes, and environments, are key to this process.

Those who attended SC22 had access to a special look into NVIDIA Omniverse, an open development platform that enables enterprises to collaboratively design, build, operate, and optimize large-scale, connected digital twins for industrial and scientific use cases. This demo featured the important role that Cadence 6SigmaDCX software plays in supporting the development of data center digital twins.

Watch demo here

Connected to NVIDIA Omniverse, 6SigmaDCX software allows users to create data center digital twins that enable teams to plan, test, and validate every aspect of high-performance data centers before the physical data center is built. These 3D models are connected to real-time data and accurately present multiple real-world physics, including mechanical, thermal, fluid dynamics, and more, to optimize data center design and operations. NVIDIA used 6SigmaDCX software to help model its latest AI supercomputer and has since facilitated the use of this software within the NVIDIA Omniverse environment. The software uses physics-based simulation, powered by computational fluid dynamics (CFD), to model complex thermals and cooling.

The Cadence 6SigmaDCX software suite enables engineers to simulate data center cooling design changes and conduct “what-if” analysis. Data center temperature profiles, facility cooling plots, cooling equipment performance, and other parameters are all available in one digital model. For example, NVIDIA Omniverse users can see the temperature of critical IT infrastructure, data center cooling performance, and mechanical and structural design parameters in a single model. Engineers can also use AI surrogates trained with NVIDIA Modulus for “what-if” analysis in near-real time. This lets teams simulate changes in complex thermals and cooling and see the results instantly.

Once a data center is fully constructed, the sensors, control system, and telemetry can be connected to the digital twin inside Omniverse, enabling real-time monitoring of operations. Data center engineers can then simulate common threats such as power peaking or cooling system failures, optimize layout, and validate software and component upgrades before deploying to the physical data center. 

NVIDIA Omniverse is an open development platform based on Universal Scene Description (USD), enabling connections to a wide ecosystem of 3D and simulation software. We’re proud that 6SigmaDCX software is a new connection to this platform. With connections like these, data center designers, builders, and operators can harness the power of accelerated computing, simulation, and operational digital twins connected to real-time monitoring and AI to streamline facility design, deployment, and ongoing operations.

Check out Cadence's blog post Digital Twins: Six Steps to Address Data Center Thermal Challenges to learn more.