Johnson Controls has announced a multi-million dollar strategic investment in Accelsius, a leader in two-phase, direct-to-chip liquid cooling technology for data centres.
Two-phase solutions use 'phase change' from liquid to vapor to remove heat, enabling more efficient heat extraction with reduced energy consumption.
Cooling is among the most critical equipment in a data centre, efficiently and reliably keeping the chips at the right temperature that are foundational to the digital economy.
However, with cooling systems accounting for 30% to 40% of a data centre's total energy, deploying energy- and water-efficient cooling solutions is one of the industry's most pressing challenges.
Johnson Controls Global Data Centre Solutions vice president & general manager, Austin Domenici, said with the sharp growth in AI, cooling innovation has become a front-line imperative to meet the increasing demands of high-density data centres.
"Leveraging our leading capabilities, our mission is to drive the industry forward to unlock new levels of energy efficiency across the cooling chain,” he said.
Accelsius CEO, Josh Claman, said with power-dense AI workloads, data centres are moving to liquid cooling.
"Our two-phase, direct-to-chip (D2C) cooling solutions use non-conductive fluids in highly efficient loops to stay ahead of the demanding power-dense AI and HPC workloads,” Claman said.
“This technology enables 35% OpEx savings over single-phase direct-to-chip and 8–17% total cost of ownership savings."
Johnson Controls has already pioneered a number of breakthrough innovations for data centres including its YORK YVAM magnetic bearing chiller – a solution that consumes 40 per cent less power annually as other available solutions with zero on-site water consumption, demonstrating how advanced technology can deliver sustainability and meaningful societal benefits.
In addition, the company recently launched its Silent-Aire Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) platform offering a wide range of scalable cooling capacities from 500kW to over 10MW in flexible designs that can meet the needs of any data centre.
By adopting Johnson Controls' comprehensive thermal management solutions, owners and operators can significantly improve total facility efficiency, reducing non-IT energy consumption by more than 50 per cent in most North American data centre hubs.