Vertiv and Compass have partnered on a system that can switch from air to liquid cooling.

The companies this week announced a partnership to develop a “first-of-its-kind” cooling solution with the ability to flex between air and liquid cooling to support high-density computing.

Vertiv is developing and manufacturing the technology, and the initial units will be deployed at a Compass facility in Q1 2025 as part of a planned multi-year, multi-billion dollar supply arrangement.

Vertiv CoolPhase Flex integrates liquid cooling capabilities with refrigerant-based air-cooling technologies and heat rejection in a single packaged system. It can be used initially as a direct expansion (DX) cooling system with integrated economization for air cooling, with liquid cooling capabilities engaged as more high-density computing is deployed.

“Our customers are looking for fast, practical. and energy-efficient ways to introduce liquid cooling to support AI and other high-density applications, but want the flexibility to leverage air-cooling and support mixed loads in those same facilities,” said Chris Crosby, CEO of Compass. “We had a vision for a future in which we could be prepared to quickly deploy air or liquid cooling to meet changing customer requirements and Vertiv brought that vision to life in a very innovative way. The Vertiv CoolPhase Flex provides a level of flexibility that is unparalleled in the marketplace and that is highly valuable to us and to our customers.”

Compass has previously partnered with Schneider Electric, hosting a manufacturing and integration facility at the former’s Red Oak campus in Dallas, Texas, to build prefabricated modular infrastructure. As of late 2023, Schneider had manufactured and delivered about 150 modular data center solutions to Compass

“AI is not only bringing change to data centers, it is also changing how key industry players work together to enable growth. Data center operators, customers, chip manufacturers, infrastructure providers, utility companies, and others must work together to innovate and reduce barriers to AI adoption,” added Giordano Albertazzi, CEO of Vertiv.

“Compass Datacenters and Vertiv engineers worked together to make this important project a reality. Vertiv CoolPhase Flex makes it possible to support today’s IT and quickly enable the data center of the future. With our deep expertise and understanding of the complexities of AI applications, Vertiv was uniquely able to bring this solution to market.”

Accelsius secures $24 million funding

Accelsius, which provides two-phase, direct-to-chip liquid cooling, has raised $24 million as part of a Series A funding round.

The company will use the funds to accelerate its plans for an international presence, continue to grow shipments and revenue in the US, and expand headcount.

The company this week also announced a partnership with iM Data Centers. IM will deploy Accelsius' NeuCool liquid cooling tech in its Miami data center, due to open in Q1 2025. The 100,000 sq ft facility will initially offer 10MW, eventually scaling to 40MW.

CoolIT launches new CDU

CoolIT Systems this week introduced the CHx1000, a new liquid-to-liquid coolant distribution unit (CDU) is claims is the world’s highest-density offering.

The company said the new cooling unit is purpose-built to cool the Nvidia Blackwell GPUs, delivering 1000kW cooling capacity with a flow rate of up to 1.5 liters per minute per kilowatt (LPM/kW) at a 3°C (37.4°F) approach temperature.

The company said the system is in-row serviceable, with front and back access and field-replaceable pumps, filters, and sensors without interrupting operations.

Iceotope launches new liquid-cooled server

Iceotope has announced the launch of KUL AI; a liquid-cooled eight-GPU server.

KUL AI features an 8-GPU Gigabyte G293 data center server-based solution that is integrated with Iceotope’s direct liquid cooling and powered by Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

Sabey partners with Seguente, Elea with Vertiv

Sabey has partnered with liquid cooling hardware provider Seguente to offer high-density colocation across its portfolio.

Seguente offers direct-to-chip cooling through its Coldware product line of racks and software. The system uses a passive two-phase liquid cooling method with ultra-low global warming potential dielectric fluids, is waterless and pumpless, and can reportedly offer densities up to 250kW.

Meanwhile, Brazilian operator Elea has announced it has ordered hundreds of CDUs from Vertiv to support liquid cooling for AI applications at its São Paulo sites. The first phase of this $300 million AI data center initiative will be delivered in 2025.

Eaton launches self-contained rack for Edge

Eaton has launched a new air-cooled rack for Edge environments.

The company has launched a 5.5kW model of its SmartRack family of self-contained cooling rack enclosures. SmartRack is designed for server rooms, micro data centers, distributed IT, and other space-constrained environments.

Featuring a pre-installed, 12U cooling unit mounted at the bottom of a 42U heavy-duty custom rack, the SmartRack 5.5 kW can be deployed out of the box with an HVAC professional. It offers 27U of rack space for IT equipment.

Johnson Controls launches new vertical CRAH

Johnson Controls recently launched a new air conditioning unit.

Featuring a vertical downflow and draw-through layout, the York Mission Critical Vertical Computer Room Air Handler (MCV CRAH) can offer cooling in above-floor or under-floor data center applications. It is available in multiple capacities from 105kW to 550kW.

Liquid Cooling Coalition presents new ISO 31000 liquid cooling risks

The Liquid Cooling Coalition recently presented a new ISO 31000 series risk assessment model assessing the top 200 risks in liquid cooling of electronics in data centers for peer review and feedback.

The group is requesting feedback on the model.