Top 10: Direct to Chip Cooling Companies

Direct-to-chip (DTC) cooling is a critical infrastructure innovation helping to future-proof modern data centre facilities.

With the rapid ascent of generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), TDP (Thermal Design Power) for high-end GPUs and CPUs is now routinely exceeding 700W, often rendering traditional air cooling insufficient.

Direct-to-chip solutions, which circulate liquid coolant through cold plates sitting directly atop the processors, offer far superior heat transfer efficiency compared to air.

This allows for significantly higher rack densities and improved Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).

In this list, Data Centre Magazine ranks the innovators providing the cold plates, coolant distribution units (CDUs) and manifolds essential for the next generation of high-density computing.

10. Submer

CEO: Patrick Smets
Founded: 2015
Location: Barcelona, Spain

While Submer is primarily known for its leadership in immersion cooling, its technological footprint in the direct-to-chip space is growing through hybrid approaches.

The company’s focus on sustainability and "Smart Coolant" chemistry allows operators to handle extreme heat loads while maintaining high energy efficiency.

Submer provides robust solutions for hyperscalers who require a mix of cooling technologies to manage diverse hardware fleets, harnessing its expertise in fluid dynamics.

Its modular designs are particularly favoured for rapid deployment in brownfield sites.

9. Supermicro

CEO: Charles Liang
Founded: 1993
Location: San Jose, California, US

Supermicro has transformed from a server specialist into a full-stack liquid cooling provider.

Their direct-to-chip solutions are engineered to support the highest-density AI factories, offering a complete "single-vendor" loop that includes cold plates for CPUs, GPUs and even DIMM memory.

By integrating cooling at the manufacturing stage, Supermicro enables "plug-and-play" liquid-cooled racks.

Their focus on Resource-Saving Architecture ensures that operators can achieve up to 40% savings on cooling costs while significantly increasing the compute power available within a standard data centre footprint.

8. JetCool

CEO: Bernie Malouin
Founded: 2019
Location: Littleton, Massachusetts, US

JetCool is a pioneer in "microjet" cooling technology. Rather than simply passing fluid over a cold plate, JetCool’s platform uses arrays of fluid jets that strike the processor’s hot spots directly.

This "targeted" approach allows for significantly higher heat transfer coefficients than traditional cold plates.

The company’s SmartPlate system is specifically designed to handle the intense thermal demands of AI and high-performance computing (HPC) chips, providing a compact and highly effective solution that can be integrated directly by server OEMs.

7. ZutaCore

CEO: Erez Freibach
Founded: 2016
Location: San Jose, California, US

ZutaCore specialises in "HyperCool," a waterless, two-phase direct-to-chip liquid cooling solution.

By using a non-conductive dielectric fluid that changes phase from liquid to gas, ZutaCore can remove heat more efficiently than single-phase water systems.

This eliminates the risk of water-related damage to sensitive electronics and reduces the need for complex plumbing.

Its platform is highly scalable, allowing data centres to transition from low-density to high-density racks without the massive infrastructure overhauls typically required for traditional liquid cooling.

6. DCX

CEO: Tomasz Buk
Founded: 2016
Location: Warsaw, Poland

DCX provides a comprehensive ecosystem for liquid cooling, ranging from cold plates to modular cooling containers.

Their direct-to-chip solutions are engineered for maximum heat recapture, allowing operators to repurpose waste heat for district heating or other industrial processes.

DCX stands out for its focus on open standards and vendor-neutral hardware, ensuring that its cooling manifolds and CDUs can support a wide variety of server configurations.

This flexibility is increasingly important as operators move toward disaggregated, multi-vendor hardware environments in the 5G and AI era.

5. LiquidStack

CEO: Joe Capes
Founded: 2012
Location: Carrollton, Texas, US

LiquidStack, recently acquired by Trane Technologies, is a powerhouse in the liquid cooling market.

While they are famous for two-phase immersion, their direct-to-chip technologies are becoming central to their "Data Centre-as-a-Service" vision.

LiquidStack’s solutions are designed for extreme densities, often exceeding 100kW per rack.

Integrating their cooling technology with advanced control software, they provide a holistic thermal management system that automatically adjusts to real-time compute loads.

This ensures peak performance for AI training clusters while maintaining some of the lowest PUE ratings in the industry.

4. Schneider Electric 

CEO: Olivier Blum
Founded: 1836
Location: Rueil-Malmaison, France

Schneider Electric is a titan of data centre infrastructure, and its foray into direct-to-chip cooling is backed by a global supply chain and service network.

Their solutions focus on the complete "liquid loop," providing everything from the in-row CDUs to the micro-data centres equipped with DTC technology.

Schneider’s strength lies in its EcoStruxure platform, which allows for the integrated management of power and cooling.

Schneider offers a de-risked path to liquid cooling, backed by decades of experience in power distribution and thermal management.

3. Vertiv

CEO: Giordano Albertazzi
Founded: 2016
Location: Westerville, Ohio, US

Vertiv has rapidly expanded its liquid cooling portfolio to meet the surge in AI demand. Their direct-to-chip solutions are part of a broader strategy to support the "AI-ready" data centre.

Vertiv’s Liebert CDUs and XDU coolant distribution units are designed to work in tandem with high-performance cold plates to manage the massive heat generated by the latest accelerators.

The company’s global reach and deep engineering expertise allow them to provide bespoke cooling solutions for hyperscalers who require rapid, large-scale deployments of liquid-cooled infrastructure across multiple geographies.

2. Accelsius

CEO: Josh Claman
Founded: 2022
Location: Austin, Texas, US

Accelsius has quickly risen to the top of the sector with its NeuCool platform, a two-phase direct-to-chip solution born from Bell Labs technology.

Unlike traditional water-based systems, NeuCool uses a safe, dielectric refrigerant that boils at the chip surface, carrying away heat far more effectively than single-phase liquids.

This "dry-contact" approach ensures that there is no fluid in direct contact with the electronics, providing a layer of safety that is highly attractive to enterprise clients.

Accelsius is leading the way in making high-density cooling accessible, offering a solution that can be retrofitted into existing air-cooled racks with minimal infrastructure changes.

Their focus on reliability and "zero-leak" architecture makes them a primary choice for mission-critical AI deployments where downtime is not an option.

1. CoolIT Systems

CEO: Jason Waxman
Founded: 2001
Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

CoolIT Systems sits at the pinnacle of the direct-to-chip market, having established itself as the primary partner for nearly every major server OEM.

Their Coldplate Technology is the industry benchmark, cooling millions of CPUs and GPUs in the world’s most powerful supercomputers and hyperscale data centres.

CoolIT provides a truly end-to-end liquid cooling solution, including their plates, manifolds and sophisticated Coolant Distribution Units, with their systems deployed in 300 data centres worldwide.

What sets CoolIT apart is its unmatched scale and proven track record; they have successfully navigated the transition from niche HPC applications to mainstream data centre adoption.

With the recent leadership of Jason Waxman and significant backing from KKR, CoolIT is well-positioned to dominate the "AI-Factory" era, ensuring that the world's most advanced silicon can run at maximum clock speeds without thermal throttling.