Global and China Liquid Cooling Technology and Industrial Chain Panorama (Cold Plate, CDU, Quick Connector, Cooling Tower, Coolant) Industry Research Report, 2026
Liquid Cooling Technology: The Only Way to Solve the High Heat Dissipation Pressure of High-Power Precision Devices Driven by AI
Liquid cooling technology is the only way to address the heat dissipation pressure in data centers. Liquid cooling is a heat dissipation technology that uses liquid to carry away the heat from heat-generating devices. By replacing traditional air cooling with cooling liquid, it fully utilizes the high thermal conductivity and high heat capacity characteristics of liquid to replace air as the heat dissipation medium. Compared with traditional forced air cooling, liquid cooling has advantages such as low energy consumption, high heat dissipation, low noise, and low TCO, and is suitable for application scenarios that require improved computing power, energy efficiency, deployment density, etc. It has become a new type of refrigeration solution and is the only way to address the heat dissipation pressure and energy-saving challenges in data centers.
Liquid cooling system: Consists of the outdoor side (primary side) and the indoor side (secondary side)
The liquid cooling system consists of an outdoor side (primary side) and a data center side (secondary side)
Primary side (value proportion: 30%):
a.The cooling section can choose one or a combination of chiller, cooling tower, or dry cooler
b.Primary side circulation pumps, pipelines, valves, and water treatment components ensure stable flow and water quality
c.Monitoring and security section, including temperature and pressure sensing, flow meters, bypass/relief, BMS/building control, etc.
Secondary side (value proportion: 70%):
a.CDU (value proportion: 25%), including plate heat exchanger, secondary side redundant pump unit (constant/variable frequency), expansion/reservoir tank, filter/deionization component, bypass loop, valve group, pressure relief and fluid replenishment, sensors and controllers, liquid leakage detection, etc.
b.Manifold + Quick Connector (accounting for 20% of the value), distributes the supply/return liquid from the CDU to each server loop, while enabling "quick plug/quick disconnect" without tools and with minimal liquid spillage, facilitating rack installation and maintenance
c.Pipelines / water pumps / valves (value proportion: 15 - 18%) and cooling media, auxiliary materials, etc. (value proportion: 5 - 8%)
Liquid cooling classification: divided into cold plate liquid cooling, immersion liquid cooling, and spray liquid cooling
Depending on whether the coolant is in contact with the heat-generating device, liquid cooling technology can be divided into two types: direct contact and indirect contact. Direct contact refers to the cooling liquid directly contacting the heat-generating device for heat dissipation, including single-phase immersion liquid cooling, two-phase immersion liquid cooling, and spray liquid cooling; indirect contact refers to the cooling liquid not directly contacting the heat-generating device, but indirectly dissipating heat through a heat sink, including single-phase cold plate liquid cooling and two-phase cold plate liquid cooling. Among them, cold plate liquid cooling, which uses microchannel enhanced heat transfer technology, has extremely high heat dissipation performance and currently has the highest industry maturity;Immersion and spray liquid cooling achieve 100% liquid cooling, with better energy-saving effects.
Liquid Cooling Market Size: Clear Growth Curve, Driven by Downstream High-Computing Power Scenarios , the Liquid Cooling Market Expands Rapidly
The market size of the liquid cooling industry is expected to continue growing: the global market size of liquid cooling systems was approximately $6.1 billion in 2024, and is projected to reach $52.9 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.2% from 2024 to 2030.
Cold Plate Liquid Cooling: Its mainstream position is solid, and it continues to lead in scale. We predict that the market share of cold plate liquid cooling will gradually decline from 93% to 73% in the future, but it will still maintain an absolute dominant position of over 70%, serving as the "core foundation" of the liquid cooling market. The slight decline in share is due to the diversion of emerging technologies (such as immersion), but it still contributes the main increment under the high base.
Immersion Liquid Cooling: Share rises rapidly, explosive growth becomes core engine. We predict that the market share of immersion liquid cooling will steadily increase from 6% to 24% in the future, with a clear growth trend. The improvement of technological maturity resonates with the downstream demand for high-density computing power, driving its penetration rate to accelerate upward.
Spray Liquid Cooling: A niche supplementary route with steady growth in scale. We predict that the market share of spray liquid cooling will gradually increase from 1% to 3% in the future, with relatively stable but marginally improving share. The technology route focuses on specific scenarios, gradually validating its feasibility in niche markets, and is expected to further penetrate into segmented scenarios in the future.
Competition landscape
Under the global AI development trend, domestic liquid cooling suppliers, including server vendors, internet companies, temperature control equipment providers, and component companies, have all participated. Each segment has its own advantages:
(1) Temperature control equipment manufacturers: They have in-depth experience in temperature control technology application scenarios, have a profound understanding of technical principles, provide customized full-chain solutions and design and manufacture of key components for customers, and can offer overall solutions from a system perspective.
(2) Server vendors: They are close to customers and can leverage customer relationships for upstream integration.
(3)Internet giants: such as Alibaba and Huawei, which are themselves customers or EPCs, hold leading positions in the industrial chain, and have clearer requirements for specific application scenarios.
(4)Component companies: enter the industrial chain with a few types of high-difficulty components and gradually improve the overall solution.
Trend 1: Liquid cooling solutions have evolved from "optional" to "mandatory"
Facing the rapidly increasing chip power consumption and cabinet power density, traditional air cooling can no longer meet the needs of servers. Air cooling is generally suitable for power densities below about 20kW/cabinet, while liquid cooling has obvious advantages when the power density exceeds 20kW. Against this background, liquid cooling technology has become a key infrastructure for addressing high-power heat dissipation challenges and ensuring system reliability, and liquid cooling solutions have thus evolved from "optional" to "mandatory". Taking NVIDIA as an example, the server liquid cooling solution has evolved from the "liquid cooling + air cooling" of GB200 NVL72 to the iteration of full liquid cooling and liquid cooling solutions under the Rubin architecture, and plans to introduce microchannel cold plate (MCCP) and microchannel lid (MCL) for direct heat dissipation inside the chip and other microchannel cold plate liquid cooling technologies to adapt to future higher power and heat dissipation requirements.
Liquid cooling technology is used to address the heat dissipation requirements of high-power density cabinets. The increase in the power density of the entire cabinet also poses higher challenges to the cooling technology of the data center. Different cabinet power densities correspond to different data center cooling methods. As an emerging cooling technology, liquid cooling is used to address the heat dissipation requirements of high-power density cabinets.
Trend 2: The value of liquid cooling increases rapidly with chip upgrades
Currently, liquid cooling has become a standard feature in North American data centers: the GB200 NVL72 adopts a rack-mounted liquid cooling design, equipped with 72 Blackwell GPUs (18*4) and 36 Grace CPUs (18*2). The GB200 NVL72 uses a large-area liquid cooling plate design with an "integrated" approach, where one large cold plate covers 1 CPU + 2 GPUs, prioritizing cost. Therefore, a GB200 rack requires 36 large cold plates for its computing trays; the GB300 uses a "standalone" design, providing each GPU with a dedicated independent cold plate, prioritizing performance and precise heat dissipation.A GB300 rack requires 108 independent cold plates for its computing trays.
The value of liquid cooling grows rapidly with chip upgrades: Taking GB300 - GB200 as an example, according to our calculations, the value of the rack liquid cooling module is expected to increase by more than 20%, and in the future, with the upgrade of the Rubin architecture, the value of liquid cooling is expected to further increase.
Manufacturer's New Product (1): Envicool XSpace Liquid-Cooled Computing Power Cabin
On March 21, 2025, Envicool launched a new product, the XSpace Liquid Cooling Computing Power Cabin, targeting the industry market. Focusing on the AI localization deployment needs of small and medium-sized enterprises, it helps customers achieve rolling investment and rapid application, lowers the threshold for computing power construction, takes into account the needs for expansion and upgrade, and improves the investment efficiency of computing power infrastructure.
The acceleration of AI applications will drive the continuous increase in server heat density, and liquid cooling will become an efficient choice for AI applications. During the process of localization deployment of AI computing power, small and medium-sized enterprises generally face pain points such as limited construction sites, high security risks, difficult demand matching, long delivery cycles, lack of professional experience, and rapid technological iteration. Therefore, Envicool has launched the XSpace liquid-cooled computing power cabin, comprehensively addressing user pain points from six major aspects, including intelligent & compact (Smart), multi-protection (Safety), Silent Computing(Silence), Plug & Play (Speed), Hassle-Free Operation (Service), seamless upgrade (Smooth), to help small and medium-sized enterprises accelerate their digitalization, data-driven transformation, and intelligentization processes, and enjoy AI dividends as early as possible.
Manufacturer's New Product (2): Envicool CubeCool-F Series Energy Storage Ultra-Thin Door-Mounted Liquid Cooling
On April 11, 2025, at the ESIE2025 Beijing Energy Storage Exhibition, Envicool successively launched two new industrial and commercial energy storage temperature control products - Cube Cool-F Series ultra-thin door-mounted liquid cooling for energy storage and Cube Cool-S Series full-chain direct cooling for energy storage, leveraging professional temperature control technology to facilitate the expansion of applications in industrial and commercial energy storage.
In response to the pain points of industrial and commercial energy storage cabinets, such as limited space, high noise requirements, and difficult operation and maintenance, Envicool has launched the Cube Cool-F series of ultra-thin door-mounted liquid-cooled energy storage units, with a body thickness of only 22 cm, using wall-mounted installation, suitable for energy storage cabinets of multiple specifications such as 215-372 kWh, greatly saving space and breaking through transportation limitations. At the same time, it adopts a full variable-frequency design, reducing operating noise to below 60 dB(A), meeting the operational requirements of enterprise communities.
Manufacturer's New Product (3): Pump-driven Two-phase Cold Plate Liquid Cooling System
On November 19, 2025, at the 2025 Intel Technology Innovation and Industry Ecosystem Conference, the Envicool Pump-Driven Two-Phase Cold Plate Liquid Cooling System made its debut and received extensive attention.
The Envicool Pump-driven Two-phase Cold Plate Liquid Cooling System, based on the Envicool Coolinside full-chain liquid cooling system, is an innovative liquid cooling solution successfully developed to effectively address the heat dissipation challenges posed by the continuously rising power consumption and power density of AI chips in the future.
Recent Industry Dynamics
Recent Key Industrial Changes in China's Liquid Cooling Industry
Recently, two crucial industrial changes have emerged in the domestic liquid cooling industry. These two changes directly reflect the changing trend of the industry's prosperity and provide new growth impetus for the development of the liquid cooling industry.The first significant change is concentrated in the domestic AI sector, where the tender volume for Artificial Intelligence Data Centers (AIDC) has increased significantly. Enterprises related to switches supporting AIDC have received a large number of orders, which has broken the situation of insufficient tender volume caused by supply disruptions in 2025Q2. This indicates that infrastructure construction in the domestic AI sector is accelerating, and the strong demand for liquid cooling technology from AIDC will directly drive up the demand for domestic liquid cooling products as the tender volume grows. The second significant change is reflected in the fiber optical cable sector, where domestic fiber optical cable products have recently seen a slight price increase. This price change indicates that the prosperity of the fiber optical cable industry is gradually recovering. As fiber optical cables are important infrastructure supporting data centers and liquid cooling systems, the recovery of the industry's prosperity also indirectly confirms the acceleration of domestic digital infrastructure construction.
Technological upgrading trends in the liquid cooling industry
The technological upgrading trend in the liquid cooling industry is mainly reflected in the continuous iterative upgrading of non-standard products. Centering around the changing heat dissipation requirements of chips, both the core components and overall solutions of liquid cooling products are constantly being optimized, specifically manifested in three aspects.
1) continuous upgrading of adapters. Adapters are the core connecting components of liquid cooling systems, and their models are continuously updated with the iteration of chips and cabinets, gradually evolving from the early UQD model to the NVQD model, and currently to the MQD model. Each upgrade can better adapt to the heat dissipation interfaces of new chips, improving the heat dissipation efficiency of liquid cooling systems.
2) the adaptation changes of cold plates. The specifications and design of cold plates need to match the power consumption and dimensions of the chips. For example, NVIDIA's server racks have been upgraded from large cold plates adapted to GB200 chips to small cold plates adapted to GB300 chips, and the number of adapters on the cold plates has also increased significantly. This adjustment can more precisely target the chips for heat dissipation, meeting the heat dissipation requirements of high-power chips.
3) upgrade of the heat dissipation solution. The liquid cooling heat dissipation solution is evolving from the traditional single-direction liquid cooling cold plate to the more efficient phase change cold plate. For example, NVIDIA's Rubin-related products have adopted phase change cold plate technology, which can better meet the heat dissipation requirements of next-generation high-density chips. For instance, the power consumption of NVIDIA's GB200 single chip reaches 1000-1200 watts, and phase change cold plate technology has become the key to solving the heat dissipation problem of such high-power chips.
The high prosperity of the liquid cooling industry will drive the relevant industrial chain to benefit
The high prosperity of the liquid cooling industry will not only promote the development of its own industrial chain but also drive multiple related industrial chains to benefit simultaneously, forming a good situation of coordinated development.
The first to benefit is the industrial chain of switching chips and scale up switches. With the widespread application of liquid cooling technology in data centers, domestic data centers are gradually switching to the supernode solution, which has higher performance requirements for switching chips and scale up switches. The development of the liquid cooling industry will directly drive the growth of demand for such products.
Next are server manufacturers. The implementation of the supernode solution can effectively improve the industry influence of server manufacturers. The enhanced compatibility between liquid cooling technology and servers will drive the upgrade and iteration of server products, thereby boosting the performance growth of server manufacturers.
Ultimately, the beneficiaries are IDC vendors and IDC equipment suppliers. The application of liquid cooling technology can improve the operational efficiency and stability of data centers. IDC vendors will increase their investment in the construction of liquid-cooled data centers, and at the same time, it will also drive the demand for IDC-related equipment. For example, equipment such as high-power power supplies and high-voltage direct current (HVDC) will all usher in new growth opportunities with the development of the liquid cooling industry.
Global and China Liquid Cooling Technology and Industrial Chain Panorama (Cold Plate, CDU, Quick Connector, Cooling Tower, Coolant) Industry Research Report, 2026
Liquid Cooling Technology: The Only Way to Solve the High Heat Dissipation Pressure of High-Power Precision Devices Driven by AI
Liquid cooling technology is the only way to address the heat dissipat...
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