Thermal Management for Data Centers 2025-2035: Technologies, Markets, and Opportunities

With the increasing demand for high-performance computing in sectors like AI, cloud computing, and crypto mining, the thermal design power (TDP) of chips has risen significantly over the past 16 years. Nivida's B200 GPU has already demonstrated a TDP of 1200W. With the roadmap released by Nvidia and a recent announcement from Intel on its Falcon Shores chip to be released in 2025, it will not be long before we will see chips with TDP exceeding 1500W. This upward trend in TDP has propelled a need for more efficient thermal management systems at both the micro (server board and chip) and macro (server rack and facility) levels. In recent years, leading data center users have collaborated with various cooling solution vendors to launch innovative pilot projects and commercialize ready-to-use cooling solutions, aiming to enhance cooling performance and meet sustainability targets by adopting more efficient cooling solutions. Nvidia has offered "official" guide by adopting cold plates on their NVLink72 server rack.

 

IDTechEx's report on Thermal Management for Data Centers 2025-2035 includes a granular market forecast of data center cooling technologies segmented by data center server rack power capacity. The report analyses liquid cooling technologies (single-phase cold plate, two-phase cold plate, single-phase immersion, and two-phase immersion), cooling solution value chain, technological barriers of different cooling methods, cost analysis of players in different value chain positions, value chain consolidation potentials, and roadmap for the future cooling strategy.

 

In addition to technical analysis, the report features a comprehensive commercial landscape analysis, including the data center cooling value chain, partnerships between players across the value chain, and the competitive landscape.

 

The report delivers an in-depth volume and market size forecast for direct-to-liquid cooling, categorized by components such as CDUs, quick disconnects, manifolds, cold plate systems (including cold plates, hoses, pipes, and fluid distribution networks within servers), and air cooling components for D2C. It also offers a detailed forecast for immersion cooling, segmented by immersion tanks, immersion coolant, CDUs, and related piping, valves, and monitoring systems. Additionally, the forecast is further divided by single-phase and two-phase cooling technologies.

 

The report also provides a 10-year outlook on the use of thermal interface materials (TIMs) across data center components. Moreover, it includes a forecast of liquid cooling adoption, differentiating between AI and non-AI applications, to highlight the industries expected to present the most significant opportunities.

 

Data center cooling methods can be broadly categorized into air cooling and liquid cooling, depending on the cooling medium employed. Air cooling relies on air conditioning and/or fans, utilizing convection to dissipate heat from the servers. It has been widely adopted due to its long and successful track record. However, the low specific heat of air makes it challenging to meet the increasing cooling capacity requirements. Additionally, as data center users strive to maximize rack space utilization by densely packing servers (typically 1U servers), the air gaps between servers become narrower, which further reduces the efficiency of air cooling.

 

Liquid cooling, on the other hand, takes advantage of the higher specific heat of liquid to achieve superior cooling performance. Depending on which components the fluids contact, liquid cooling can be classified into direct-to-chip/cold plate cooling, spray cooling, and immersion cooling. Direct-to-chip cooling involves mounting a cold plate with coolant fluid directly on top of heat sources such as GPUs and chipsets, with a thermal interface material (TIM) applied in between. Cold plate cooling can achieve a partial power use effectiveness (pPUE) ranging from 1.02 to 1.20, depending on the specific configuration.

 

An emerging alternative is immersion cooling where the servers are fully submerged in coolant fluids, enabling direct contact between the heat sources and the coolant, thereby achieving the best cooling performance with the lowest pPUE of 1.01. However, its widespread adoption is still limited due to challenges such as high upfront costs (in terms of US$/Watt), maintenance, and complexities of retrofitting the server boards. Nevertheless, immersion cooling holds potential for long-term energy savings thanks to their efficient thermal dissipation, which is not only economically beneficial given the current context of energy crisis but also helps the large companies to achieve their sustainability goals in the long run.

 

IDTechEx's comparative analysis of the 10-year total cost of ownership (TCO) between D2C cooling, 1-PIC and 2-PIC immersion across four regions reveals that over the course of 10 years, D2C on average has a 13% lower TCO than 1-PIC immersion and 9.4% lower than 2-PIC immersion, subject to the assumptions listed in the report. This report also highlights strategic collaborations and pilot projects between data center end-users, server OEMs, and immersion cooling vendors, as well as other barriers hindering the widespread adoption of immersion cooling. Market adoption (hardware units) and revenue forecasts are provided for air, cold-plate, and immersion cooling through to 2035.

 

Liquid cooling can also be classified into single-phase and two-phase cooling. Two-phase cooling generally exhibits greater effectiveness, but it also presents challenges such as regulations regarding two-phase immersion cooling fluids based on perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), mechanical strength requirements for fluid containers to withstand increased pressure during phase changes, fluid loss due to vaporization, and high maintenance complexities and costs. The fundamental operating principles of single- and two-phase cooling is different where single-phase cooling relies on the dissipating the heat through convection whereas two-phase cooling primarily relies on dissipating the heat through the latent heat during the phase change. This report provides an analysis of different liquid cooling vendors, coolant fluid suppliers, and data center end-users, offering insights into the opportunities and threats associated with single-phase and two-phase direct-to-chip/cold plate and immersion cooling.

 

 

 

IDTechEx anticipates rapid growth in the adoption of liquid cooling, driven by factors such as the increasing power capacity of data centers, the rise of hyperscale data centers, the availability of ready-to-use liquid cooling solutions, high flexibility and ability to retrofit, and the market trends driven by large players such as Nvidia. Specifically, cold plate cooling is expected to experience the largest growth due to its cost effectiveness and compatibility with existing air-cooled data centers, eliminating the need for extensive retrofitting to accommodate immersion cooling solutions.

 

In line with these projections, this report offers a detailed 10-year revenue forecast for hardware related to liquid cooling in data centers segmented AI and non-AI applications. Within non-AI applications, IDTechEx also splits the forecasts of cold plate cooling by server rack power.

 

With greater adoption of liquid cooling, new opportunities are emerging, leading to strengthened collaborations among companies involved in the data center cooling supply chain. Component suppliers such as coolant distribution units (CDUs) vendors, pump vendors, and coolant fluid suppliers are expected to benefit from the increased adoption of liquid cooling. CDUs and pumps are critical components for controlling the flow rate in liquid cooling systems. Factors such as pressure drop need to be carefully considered. This report introduces various commercial in-rack and in-row CDUs, accompanied by a comprehensive comparison of coolant fluids based on their dynamic viscosity, density, specific heat, thermal conductivity, as well as required pipe length and pipe diameter. One of the emerging trends in vertical integration is seen in the data center cooling value chain, which is intricate and extensive. Although many liquid cooling solution suppliers advocate increased collaboration across the value chain, the current landscape remains fragmented, requiring extensive work from system integrations to integrate every component together into a data center. IDTechEx has identified potential opportunities for market consolidation, with server OEMs beginning to offer comprehensive rack-level cooling solutions. These solutions encompass various components, including cold plates on servers, server racks, and essential parts such as manifolds, CDUs, and QDs.

 

This report delivers essential market intelligence about the data center cooling sector and the 6 associated cooling technologies covered, including air cooling, single-phase direct-to-chip cooling, two-phase direct-to-chip cooling, spray cooling, single-phase immersion, and two-phase immersion. More details include:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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