Physics / mechanism
Cold plate, immersion, and two-phase liquid cooling all exploit water’s ~25× higher volumetric heat capacity versus air to remove heat flux that air cooling can no longer handle. Cold plates circulate dielectric fluid or water-glycol through machined channels bonded to a heat source; thermal resistance typically 0.01–0.05 °C·cm²/W depending on channel geometry and flow rate. Single-phase immersion submerges hardware directly in dielectric fluid (Novec, mineral oil); two-phase immersion adds a boiling/condensation cycle, leveraging latent heat to reach effective heat transfer coefficients >10,000 W/m²·K. Driving adoption: GPU/ASIC TDPs crossing 700 W per chip, rack densities hitting 100 kW+, and air cooling’s practical ceiling around 30–40 kW/rack.
Competitive landscape
Companies using
Connected ideas
Sources
Frontier (open questions)
- To be added.