Liquid Cooling Becomes Core Thermal Solution for Next-Generation AI Data Centers
Liquid cooling replaces air with liquid media to exchange and carry away heat from server components, maintaining stable and safe operating temperatures for electronic devices. As a foundational thermal control technology, it is categorized into indirect and direct cooling types based on contact modes. Indirect cooling is dominated by cold plate solutions, including single-phase and two-phase structures, while direct cooling covers immersion and spray cooling. Industry data shows cold plate cooling accounts for 91% of current market share, immersion cooling for 8%, and spray cooling for merely 1%. Delivering outstanding advantages in heat dissipation efficiency, energy conservation and space optimization, professional liquid cooling distribution unit equipment empowers modern data centers to achieve greener and more efficient thermal management compared with traditional air cooling systems.
Liquid cooling greatly reduces data center PUE and overall power consumption. For a 10MW data center, lowering PUE from 1.5 to 1.2 saves 26.28 million kWh annually, cutting power costs by approximately 18.4 million RMB every year. It also extends hardware service life and lowers failure rates. Liquid-cooled servers achieve an annual failure rate of 0.5%, far lower than 2% for air-cooled equipment, reducing maintenance costs by 75%. In terms of density and space utilization, liquid cooling supports rack power above 50kW, compared with a maximum 15kW for traditional air cooling, saving nearly 60% of floor space under equivalent computing load. According to Uptime Institute, liquid cooling reduces five-year data center TCO by 18% to 25%, with more significant advantages in high-density AI scenarios. Optimized for full-cycle energy efficiency, the high-performance liquid CDU cooling system further amplifies the cost-saving and stable-operation strengths of liquid cooling architecture.
Booming AIGC development continuously increases chip power consumption, pushing heat flux close to the physical limit of air cooling. Liquid cooling has therefore become an inevitable upgrade direction for next-generation data centers. Currently, cold plate liquid cooling dominates the market due to high compatibility and low retrofitting costs, while immersion cooling faces high renovation and operational barriers, and spray cooling remains limited by low technical maturity. In the long run, immersion cooling especially phase-change immersion will become the mainstream solution for ultra-high-power computing with the gradual reduction of coolant costs and technological iteration.
The cold plate liquid cooling industrial chain features four high-value core components cold plate, CDU, manifold and quick disconnect UQD. Taking the NVIDIA GB300 liquid cooling cabinet as an example, cold plates account for 41% of the value, CDU for 32%, UQD for 14% and manifold for 13%. These core parts maintain gross profit margins above 25%–30%, while CDU and quick connectors with higher technical barriers reach 40%–60%. As the core fluid distribution hub of liquid cooling loops, the precision-engineered data center liquid cooling manifold evenly distributes coolant to each server cold plate, balances branch flow pressure and effectively avoids local overheating of high-density computing hardware.
Liquid cold plates serve as the terminal heat-exchange carrier of cold plate cooling systems, directly fitting high-power CPUs and GPUs to efficiently remove concentrated heat. Mainstream materials include aluminum, copper and advanced composite materials. Aluminum features lightweight and cost-effective merits for general scenarios, while high-conductivity copper applies to extreme high-power chips exceeding 1400W. To adapt to future 2000W–4000W ultra-high-wattage chips, the industry is rapidly upgrading to composite cold plates embedded with graphene, diamond and silicon carbide materials. MLCP microchannel cold plates represent a key evolutionary direction, integrating chip cover and cooling channels into one unit, reducing thermal contact resistance by over 50% and greatly boosting heat dissipation efficiency. Supporting both traditional upgrade and new high-density deployment, the standardized cooling distribution manifold realizes stable and low-resistance fluid circulation for MLCP and conventional cold plate systems.
CDU acts as the heart and control center of liquid cooling data centers, responsible for accurate coolant distribution, temperature adjustment, flow control and system protection. Its core components include circulating pump sets and heat exchangers, with deployment modes divided into centralized and distributed structures. Driven by rapid AI computing expansion, the global CDU market maintains robust growth, with the scale expected to rise from 1.337 billion USD in 2025 to 3.7 billion USD in 2031 at an 18.5% CAGR. The industry is currently dominated by leading international brands such as Vertiv and CoolIT, with domestic manufacturers accelerating technological breakthroughs and market penetration. Matched with high-power computing hardware, reliable server cabinet heat exchanger and CDU combinations form stable closed-loop cooling for AI and HPC racks.
UQD quick disconnect connectors are standardized OCP-spec core components for liquid cooling pipelines, enabling fast, leak-free plug-and-play connection between cold plates, manifolds and cabinets. Covering complete models from UQD02 to UQD08, they adapt to low-power IT equipment, mainstream data center servers and high-density GPU clusters. With the upgrade of NVIDIA GB200 and GB300 cabinet architectures, single-rack UQD usage and unit value continue to rise rapidly. Blind-plug UQD has become the mainstream trend, featuring high fault tolerance, zero manual calibration and low failure rate to support intelligent and uninterrupted data center operation. Flexible and compatible air liquid cooling distribution unit realizes seamless switching and collaborative operation between air and liquid cooling modes, perfectly matching incremental renovation demands of traditional data centers.
Manifold components determine the overall uniformity, stability and energy efficiency of liquid cooling systems. High-precision manufacturing, smooth internal flow channels and high-flatness sealing interfaces are core technical barriers, directly avoiding flow resistance, scaling and leakage risks. With gross margins ranging from 30% to over 35%, the manifold market is jointly participated by Taiwanese, European, American and mainland Chinese manufacturers. In hybrid cooling upgrade scenarios for legacy facilities, efficient data center rear door cooling solutions cooperate with front-end liquid cooling loops to reduce overall room cooling load and achieve balanced energy-saving operation.
As AI GPU power density continues to break records, traditional air cooling can no longer support long-term stable operation of large-scale training clusters. Integrated fluid distribution and temperature control equipment specially optimized for high-load scenarios, the dedicated AI server air liquid cooling CDU perfectly adapts to mixed cooling architectures of new and upgraded AI data centers, becoming indispensable core infrastructure for high-efficiency, low-PUE and high-density intelligent computing development.
A globally recognized frontrunner in liquid cooling, EXTRCOOL supplies a complete lineup of thermal management hardware—including dual-mode CDUs, manifold assemblies, cold plates, rear-door heat exchangers, dry coolers, and containerized units—all specifically engineered for AI and HPC data centers. Built for stable operation, seamless interoperability, and straightforward scalability, these systems ensure a comprehensive turnkey cooling solution. We support data center operators and enterprise clients across Northern Europe, Southern Europe, West Asia, East Africa, and Central America.
