What Is a Manifold? The Critical "Vascular System" of Data Center Liquid Cooling Infrastructure
The CDU acts as the heart of liquid cooling systems, while the data center cooling manifold serves as the core vascular infrastructure for modern AI data centers. It functions as a precision distribution hub, evenly delivering coolant to server cold plates and balancing overall thermal circulation. Far beyond ordinary HVAC water separators, this professional manifold defines the basic heat dissipation performance of high-density computing racks.
Manifold:The Indispensable Vascular Component for High-Density AI Liquid-Cooled Racks
As AI computing cabinet power density surpasses 100kW, cold-plate liquid cooling has become standard for intelligent-computing data centers. The cooling distribution manifold acts as the critical vascular link between CDU and server cold plates. Installed inside liquid-cooling cabinets, it evenly distributes coolant and collects heated fluid, directly setting the reliability baseline for the whole liquid-cooling loop.
NVIDIA Rubin Eliminates Cabinet Hoses, Boosting Manifold Market Value by 90%
NVIDIA’s Rubin architecture completely cancels traditional cabinet hoses, driving a 90% surge in per-rack pipeline value. As the core component of modern thermal infrastructure, theliquid cooling manifold has upgraded from a marginal auxiliary part to a high-value core hardware, dominating the fluid distribution of full liquid cooling AI racks.
Manifold and CDU Jointly Secure Stable Operation of HighDensity AI LiquidCooled Racks
Within liquid-cooling systems, the CDU governs total cooling capacity and fluid temperature, while the server liquid coolant manifold delivers cooling power precisely to every thermal terminal. The coordination accuracy of these two components directly determines whether AI servers can run steadily under full-load 120 kW conditions. As AI cabinet power density exceeds 100 kW, cold-plate liquid cooling has become standard for intelligent-computing and data-center facilities. Serving as the vascular link between CDU (the system brain) and cold-plate end terminals, the cabinet supply-return manifold occupies a critical position across the whole liquid-cooling loop.
Laser Welding Reshapes Manufacturing Reliability for LiquidCooling Manifolds
As data centers pursue higher density and power consumption, manifold welding quality directly decides sealing safety and long-term system stability. The energy saving liquid cooling CDU works closely with manifolds to deliver reliable thermal performance for AI racks. Traditional argon arc welding and vacuum brazing show obvious drawbacks when facing strict sealing and mass-delivery requirements for liquid-cooling components.
Supermicro Expands FullGradient RDHx Product Line for Data Center LiquidCooling Retrofit
On July 15, 2026, Supermicro released ten new-grade RDHx products under its DCBBS modular building-block liquid-cooling portfolio. As a professional rear door heat exchanger manufacturer, Supermicro delivers cost-effective retrofitting solutions for legacy air-cooled computer rooms. The hardware is compatible with NVIDIA MGX, ORv3 and standard EIA compute racks, supporting next-generation high-power AI servers including GB300, Rubin and AMD Helios. It adopts indirect air-to-liquid heat exchange, isolating coolant from server components to eliminate internal leakage risks.
From Air Cooling to Liquid Cooling: The Fundamental Restructure of Modern AI Data Centers
Over the past decade, traditional enterprise data centers have maintained a stable cabinet power density of 6–8 kW, supported by mature air-cooled infrastructure including standard 42U racks, UPS power supply and three-phase power distribution. However, the booming deployment of AI training clusters has completely broken this traditional balance. High-performance GPU servers such as NVIDIA DGX H100 and HGX B200 push single-rack power density to 40 kW–114 kW, far exceeding the heat dissipation limit of legacy rooms. As a core retrofit device for traditional data centers, the rear door heat exchanger with CDU bridges the gap between outdated air-cooled facilities and high-density AI computing loads.
Data Center Cooling Evolution: CRAC, CRAH, Fan Wall and RDHx Liquid Cooling Solutions
The next milestone in our technical roadmap focuses on hall-level data center cooling infrastructure. Mainstream air-cooled equipment includes CRAC units, CRAH units and fan wall systems, while direct expansion (DX) units are rarely deployed in modern facilities. As a professional rear door heat exchanger supplier, we systematically analyze the differences between traditional air cooling and emerging rack-level liquid cooling technologies to support high-density AI data center construction and upgrading.
Two Main CDU Architectures for ColdPlate Indirect Liquid Cooling in AI Data Centers
Driven by continuously rising power consumption of AI compute servers, cold-plate indirect liquid cooling has become the mainstream thermal solution for high-density computing clusters. As the core hub of indirect liquid cooling, the CDU executes isolated heat exchange between facility cooling water on the primary side and dielectric coolant on the secondary side, together with media circulation, temperature adjustment and fluid monitoring. The data center secondary cooling system relies heavily on CDU hardware to secure reliable coolant delivery for cold-plate equipped AI servers.
CDU: The Most Underrated HighValue Core of AI Liquid Cooling Systems
When reviewing the BOM of a liquid-cooled cabinet, most people focus on the GPU cold plate, the most intuitive cooling component. However, the cold plate cannot even rank among the top three in system costs. The real cost driver is the CDU (Coolant Distribution Unit), an inconspicuous core device hidden in the pipeline loop. A single CDU accounts for 30% to 40% of the total liquid cooling budget, serving as the decisive hardware for high density rack air liquid CDU thermal management. As AI rack power density continues to surge, high-grade CDU configuration has become a mandatory standard for stable heat dissipation of high-density computing clusters.

