As we near the end of 2025, the technological landscape continues to undergo a rapid transformation, driven by the surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. To meet these growing needs, chipmakers have introduced a new generation of high-performance AI chips that are essential to modern innovation. These powerful chips unlock unprecedented capabilities, but they also generate unprecedented amounts of heat.
Data centres and tech companies, who are using high-performance chips for advanced computing tasks like complex AI algorithms and data processing, now find themselves at a critical juncture. These high-performance chips consume vast amounts of power and produce intense thermal loads that directly impact performance, uptime, and longevity. Cooling now has become a defining factor for scaling AI successfully and cost-effectively.
Data centre facility operators therefore have no choice but to invest in more advanced, efficient cooling solutions to ensure these high-power chips operate within safe temperature ranges. By adopting better heat management strategies, they are not only solving immediate performance concerns but also reshaping their broader approach to hardware deployment in environments where reliability is non-negotiable.
Overcoming the limitations of traditional liquid cooling
It is often overlooked that one of the most critical components in a data centre is not the servers, chips, or racks, but the cooling systems that keep these systems running. Historically, data centre servers relied on energy-intensive fans and air-conditioning systems to stay operational. Today, those air-based cooling methods are no longer sufficient to dissipate the massive heat loads generated by modern AI chipsets. This not only drives up energy consumption but also strains already limited power availability in data centres, creating significant economic and environmental challenges that make conventional cooling increasingly unsustainable for chipmakers and operators.
Liquid cooling has been recognized as a promising alternative to air cooling because it offers advantages that help data centres reduce power consumption while improving computing performance. But large-scale adoption has been slowed by the complexity of sourcing components from multiple vendors, the lack of a single end-to-end warranty provider, and uncertainty about how to future-proof deployments. Operators are concerned about investing in systems that may become obsolete within a single hardware refresh cycle.
For stakeholders, the priority is clear: cooling solutions must provide a long-term path forward balancing performance with ease of deployment, backed by unified warranties, and designed to evolve with each new generation of compute hardware.
Direct-to-Chip: Precision Cooling for AI
To meet these requirements, single-phase, direct-to-chip liquid cooling has emerged as a highly effective solution, driving major advancements in server thermal management. By leveraging a microjet impingement approach, direct-to-chip solutions deliver coolant directly to the hottest parts of a chip, dramatically improving heat transfer and minimizing hotspots. Unlike traditional single-phase and two-phase immersion cooling systems, which cooling capacities typically max out at around 400W and 2,000W per device respectively, single phase direct-to-chip cooling can efficiently handle thermal outputs of over 4,000W in a single socket- -a breakthrough that allows data centres to keep pace with AI-era chip designs while leveraging much of the liquid-ready infrastructure they already have.
Self-contained systems support the next phase of more sustainable computing
While direct-to-chip systems deliver exceptional thermal performance, some facilities face practical challenges with plumbing upgrades, CDU installations, or retrofitting legacy infrastructure. Self-contained liquid cooling systems offer a bridge to adoption by circulating coolant entirely within the server in a closed loop—eliminating the need for external piping or facility-wide modifications.
These systems can cool up to 1,500 W in standard 2U servers and cut upfront installation costs by as much as 50% compared to traditional liquid cooling setups. They also free up valuable rack space, and can reduce total server power consumption by 15%, helping operators hit density and sustainability targets simultaneously.
A smarter way to cool next-generation data centres and chips
As the AI era continues, data centers face growing pressure to adopt cooling technologies that are efficient, cost-justifiable, and scalable for future hardware generations. The most successful deployments will be driven by partners who deliver end-to-end solutions from rack-level integration to OEM-aligned warranties giving operators peace of mind and a single point of accountability.
Taken together, direct-to-chip liquid cooling systems represent a major leap forward delivering the efficiency, performance, and scalability needed to power the next wave of AI innovation.
