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Data center cooling at the rack and cabinet level is the process of removing heat generated by IT equipment to maintain stable operating temperatures, protect infrastructure , and ensure predictable performance and longevity. As rack densities increase and workloads become more compute-intensive, effective cooling is critical to data center uptime and efficiency.
Data center cooling solutions generally fall into two categories: air cooling and liquid cooling, with both active and passive approaches depending on density and application.
Active data center cooling uses mechanically-driven systems to remove heat and support higher power densities. These solutions can be air-based or liquid-based, making them well-suited for high-performance data centers with AI workloads that often exceed 100 kW per rack.
Air Cooling captures heat from server exhaust air and transfers it to a working fluid, effectively cooling high-density racks with a non-invasive approach. Common implementations include rear-door heat exchangers (RDHx) and in-row cooling, widely used in hyperscale, colocation, and enterprise data centers.
Liquid Cooling removes heat directly from IT equipment using liquid coolants, enabling effective thermal management for ultra-high-density, performance-critical AI clusters. Technologies such as single-phase and two-phase direct-to-chip cooling are increasingly adopted in hyperscale and next-generation cloud (Neoclouds) environments.
A high-performance air-cooled device mounted on the rear of a rack that absorbs exhaust heat from the servers before it enters the data center, improving cooling effectiveness and supporting higher-density equipment.
Density Ranges:
CL20: up to 90kW
CL23: up to 150kW
Two-phase direct-to-chip (DTC) cooling uses a dielectric fluid that boils on contact with hot components, thereby carrying away heat and enabling ultra-efficient cooling of AI and HPC processors. It is an ultra-highly effective thermal management technique for HPC and AI, using a non-conducting, dielectric fluid that boils upon contact with hot components (CPUs/GPUs).
Density Ranges:
IR150: up to 150kW
IR215: up to 215kW
MR250: up to 250kW
Aisle containment separates hot and cold air in a data center to improve cooling efficiency, maintain consistent server temperatures, and reduce energy use.
Density Range:
Aisle Containment: up to 30kW
A rear door heat exchanger (RDHx) is a cabinet-mounted cooling solution installed on the back of a server cabinet that captures heat from server exhaust air before it enters the data center.
Using a liquid-to-air coil, heat is transferred from warm air to a liquid coolant, reducing the load on room-level cooling systems.
Ideal for medium- to high-density environments, RDHx provides localized cabinet cooling, improves energy efficiency, supports higher rack densities, and integrates easily with existing cabinet and cooling infrastructure
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Two-phase direct-to-chip (DTC) cooling is an advanced thermal management solution for HPC and AI workloads that uses a non-conductive dielectric fluid to remove heat directly from CPUs and GPUs. As the fluid contacts hot components, it boils, changing from liquid to vapor, absorbing large amounts of heat, and delivering superior cooling at lower flow rates than single-phase systems.
Two-phase cooling is ideal for ultra-high-density environments exceeding 100 kW per rack, where air or single-phase liquid cooling cannot handle extreme thermal loads. This method supports tightly packed compute hardware while maintaining reliability, efficiency, and peak performance.
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Aisle containment is a data center airflow management strategy that improves cooling efficiency by physically separating cold supply air from hot exhaust air using barriers such as doors, roof panels, and aisle partitions. By preventing hot and cold air from mixing, containment helps maintain consistent inlet temperatures for equipment, reducing cooling energy consumption, and eliminating hot spots. Systems typically include roof panels, sliding doors, vertical aisle panels, and blanking panels to seal unused rack spaces and maintain controlled airflow.
Aisle containment allows active cooling infrastructure to operate more efficiently and support higher rack densities. The two most common configurations are hot aisle containment (HAC), which encloses the hot exhaust aisle, and cold aisle containment (CAC), which encloses the cold air supply aisle.
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