Liquid cooling is old hat. It’s not really, but the industry has learned to accommodate direct-to-chip liquid cooling (and rear-door heat exchangers) without too much hassle in a few short years.
Not too much hassle, of course, meaning new facility designs, new skills, new supply chains, and a range of new vendors entering the market. All the while meeting the growth demand of an industry exploding in a way few could ever have predicted in classic building-the-plane-while-flying style.
But the change has been made. And in 2026, a customer saying they need liquid cooling won’t create the same sort of stress it might have done even five years ago.
Now, however, an even bigger change could be on the horizon. During a recent event in Buffalo, New York, Schneider Electric set out its stall on the future of high-density racks, firmly planting a flag by saying that 1MW racks are coming, and that at least some of the industry will need to accommodate 800V DC.
With its upcoming Feynman architecture, Nvidia could be releasing 1MW GPU rack systems as early as 2028.
