Liquid cooling firm CoolIT has designed a new coldplate for high-density IT equipment.

The company this week announced that it has developed the first 15kW coldplate design, which it claims delivers nearly four times the performance of its earlier single-phase direct liquid cooling (DLC) coldplate designs.

CoolIT said the latest design shows that single‑phase DLC offers “significant performance runway” and “remains the de facto cooling standard” for high‑density AI systems.

"Single-phase DLC is already cooling millions of AI accelerators today. This achievement shows it is also the architecture to cool AI infrastructure well into the future," said Kamal Mostafavi, CTO of CoolIT Systems. "With validated performance at 15kW, CoolIT has proven that single-phase DLC is not only practical to cool millions of the most advanced AI chips today – but ready to cool the coming generations of GPUs and AI accelerators."

The 15kW coldplate uses CoolIT's Split-Flow microchannel architecture. The design was validated on a thermal test vehicle with a standard water-glycol coolant at 1.2 L/min/kW, with system-level thermal performance suitable for 45°C (113°F) warm-water cooling environments.

After chips reach a thermal design point (TDP) of around 700W/750W, using air cooling to remove heat becomes increasingly difficult, and liquid cooling becomes a more suitable option. Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs can operate at up to 1,200W, with its Rubin GPUs featuring TDPs up to 2,300W.

CoolIT announced a 4kW coldplate in March 2025.

Founded in 2001, CoolIT designs, engineers, and manufactures advanced liquid cooling solutions for the data center and desktop markets, including its split-flow direct liquid cooling technology. The company was acquired by KKR and Mubadala in 2024 and sold to Ecolab earlier this year.