This paper dives into the subject of immersion cooling in the data center - whether you're focused on speed, cost, performance, or environmental impact and efficient architectures, learn how AI is driving this technology to having double digit growth.
Dive Deeper New Depths of Data Center Efficiency with Immersion Cooling
Industry Perspectives from Single Phase Immersion Cooling Braintrust
September 2025
Photo courtesy of Submer
Introduction When it comes to addressing the insatiable power and cooling needs of data centers, all legacy models go out the window. We need new solutions now. Whether you're focused on speed, cost, performance, or environmental impact and efficient architectures – one cooling technology warrants a spotlight. Enter Immersion Liquid Cooling. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting engineers, PhDs and experts around the world—from conferences to labs and world class data centers. These experts came from diverse fields like organic chemistry and thermal engineering, all working to bring a simple and dare I say ‘elegant’ solution to data center challenges. This inspired me to form an industry brain trust with one objective: to create education and awareness around an alternative to air and direct liquid cooling for quieter, cooler and more efficient data centers. Our goal is simple—show that meeting today’s changing needs requires a combination of new technologies, working together to deliver greater efficiency, reliability, and sustainability without tradeoffs. We believe immersion has a role to play. Grab a chair – we have so much to learn and do together. Denise Lee VP Cisco Engineering Sustainability Office and Engineering Alliances
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Thoughts from the Industry Braintrust
“AI and HPC workloads are pushing power densities beyond what air cooling can handle, while sustainability requirements demand we cut energy consumption by 50% or more. Immersion cooling is the only technology that simultaneously solves both challenges. We're at an inflection point where the digital world can finally be more efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly—but only if we have the courage to move beyond traditional cooling paradigms.” Lior Gendel, Co-founder & CEO, Next Generation Green Technologies “Immersion cooling isn’t just about reducing energy use — it’s what makes advanced computing practical where you need it, whether in the datacenter or at the edge. The real advantage isn’t only the huge efficiency gains, but that it enables the economic case and actual deployments in places where traditional cooling would be complex or too costly. This isn’t just about cooling servers—it’s about making the distributed computing infrastructure of the next decade actually work.” Andy Young, CTO Immersed Computing, Asperitas “Single phase immersion cooling has a solid 15-year track record. Beyond exceptional efficiency and effective cooling for high density (100+ kW) workloads, immersion also delivers reduced component failure rates yielding higher system reliability. And immersion is simple …set it and forget it!” Jeff Burke Executive Vice President Sales & Marketing | Green Revolution Cooling (GRC)
“We're not debating whether immersion cooling works anymore—we're standardizing how to deploy it at scale. The specifications we're developing today will define the next decade of high-density computing. Immersion cooling doesn't just solve the thermal challenge it enables architectural possibilities that didn't exist before. After 25 years in this industry, I've never seen a technology transition from experimental to mission-critical this rapidly.” “Modern data centers and edge deployments face three primary challenges: density, efficiency and reliability. To meet the increasing computational demands of AI, High-Performance Computing (HPC), and other modern applications, liquid cooling has emerged as a critical solution in various form factors. By analyzing the specific requirements of each facility, liquid cooling can be used to optimize server density, operational efficiency and service reliability. In particular, immersion cooling is a key technology for deployments where reliability and efficiency are paramount, offering significantly lower operational costs and better Mean Time Between Failures compared to other cooling methods.” Albert Puig Artola, Chief Technology Officer, Submer
Austin Hipes, Chief Technologist, VP, Engineering, UNICOM Engineering
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Table of Contents
1.
What is Immersion Cooling?
2.
History of Cooling Technologies
3.
When to Use Immersion vs. Direct Liquid Cooling?
4.
Fast Facts- Single Phase Immersion Cooling
5.
Reality Check: Myth Busting Immersion Cooling
4
6.
Growth in Immersion and Customer FAQs
7.
Additional Resources
8.
Customer Success Stories Energy Sector & Financial Services
9. Where to go from here, how to get started 10. Meet the Braintrust
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1 What is Immersion Cooling?
Immersion cooling, specifically single-phase immersion cooling, revolutionizes data center thermal management by directly submerging IT equipment in dielectric fluid, yielding superior efficiency, density, and reliability. There are three key elements to Immersion Cooling:
3. Immersion Rack (Tank)
1. Immersion Fluid
2. IT Hardware
1. Immersion Cooling Fluid: No, it’s not water Immersion cooling relies on specialized, non-conductive dielectric fluids. These tested, single-phase synthetics safely submerge electronics, efficiently absorbing heat. Eliminating air and server fans, they protect IT equipment from dust, humidity, corrosion, and reduce vibration/failure points. The fluid acts as both a coolant and a protective barrier, enhancing the reliability and longevity of the IT hardware. 2. IT Hardware: Unprecedented Density Support The IT component in an immersion cooling architecture refers to the servers, storage, networking, and other compute devices designed or adapted for submersion. While many off-the-shelf servers can be made "immersion-ready" through minor modifications (like fan removal), some manufacturers now offer purpose-built immersion-optimized hardware. 3. Immersion Rack (Tank) A specialized enclosure that houses IT or networking equipment submerged in a thermally conductive, electrically non-conductive dielectric fluid for efficient heat removal. Designed to securely hold hardware, contain and circulate coolant, and transfer heat to secondary cooling systems such as water loops or heat exchangers.
• IT equipment is submerged into a tank with dielectric fluid • Heat is transferred from the server components into the fluid • Pumps circulate the fluid in the tank moving it through a CDU / heat exchanger • Heat from CDU is removed to the data center chilled primary loop How Immersion Cooling Works
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Texas Advanced Computing Center The Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas at Austin has been operating immersion cooling technology since 2009. They started with a single-rack installation and have since expanded their deployments including in the Lonestar6 supercomputer.
Six years of continuous mission-critical operation proves single-phase immersion cooling delivers the reliability enterprise data centers demand. This isn't experimental technology, it's proven infrastructure.
TACC Immersion Reliability Data 09/2019 to 03/2024*
Quantit y per Node
Quantity per 90 Nodes
Total Failures
Annual % Failure Rate
Component
Motherboard
1
90
1
0.25%
CPU (Intel)
2
180
0
0.00%
Memory
8
720
4
0.12%
Storage
1
90
0
0.00%
Network Card
1
90
0
0.00%
GPU (Nvidia)
4
360
7
0.43%
Power supply
1
90
1
0.25%
Built in network
1
90
1
0.00%
Heat Sink
2
180
0
0.00%
LED Lights
1
90
0
0.00%
Chassis
1
45
0
0.00%
The bulk of the system (70%) is housed in four immersion cooling tanks from Green Revolution Cooling (GRC), providing greater density than could be achieved otherwise. The remainder of the system is contained in 10 air- cooled racks. Each tank contains 21 2U chassis submerged in mineral oil with heat exchangers keeping the components and oil cool. TACC's experience has shown that immersion cooling can provide improvements in power efficiency with possible benefits to failure rates of components. At present, Lonestar6 provides a small subset of nodes that have two Nvidia A-100 GPUs in them. Depending on demand and usage patterns, other GPU configurations are possible, most likely more GPU nodes with fewer GPUs per node (32 x 1 GPU instead of 16 x 2 GPU). Some experimental subsystems are also being tested with the intention of providing more variations of possible node configurations for both GPU count as well as memory per node. TACC administrators monitor usage patterns on other TACC GPU systems to determine how they will ultimately set up Lonestar6 to best facilitate the community of researchers.
* Green Revolution Cooling, 9/2019 to 3/8/2024
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2 History of Cooling Technologies
Early forms of liquid cooling emerged in the 1940s, where it was used to cool high-voltage transformers. The concept was later applied to computing in the 1960s, when IBM developed one of the very first direct liquid cooling systems to manage the heat from early high-performance computing systems, such as the IBM Stretch (7030) mainframe computers. In the 1980s, liquid cooling saw significant advancements, notably with the work of Seymour Cray, a pioneer in supercomputing. Cray Research utilized direct immersion cooling for its supercomputers, submerging microprocessors directly in non-conductive refrigerants like Fluorinert to dissipate heat. The Cray-2 supercomputer, introduced in 1985, famously immersed dense stacks of circuit boards in this liquid, which was then cooled in a separate tank. This period also saw large-scale mainframe computers, like IBM's System/360, employing water-cooling systems to enhance operational efficiency. However, with the advent of metal oxide semiconductors and development of nimble, air-cooled rack-mounted servers in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the need for liquid cooling diminished. These new technologies allowed for denser computing without generating a proportionate amount of heat, making air cooling a more cost-effective and simpler solution for the time.
Computing Gets Cool IBM develops first direct liquid cooling for computers
Supercomputer Revolution Seymour Cray pioneers immersion cooling Cray-2 submerges circuit boards in Fluorinert IBM System/360 uses water-cooling systems Direct immersion cooling perfected
The Beginning Early liquid cooling for high-voltage transformers Foundation technology established
IBM Stretch (7030) mainframe systems Computing liquid cooling is born
1940s
1960s
1980s
Photo Credit: IBM Water Cooling
Photo Credit: Cray History
Photo Credit: Eng & Tech History
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The 2010s and beyond marked a significant resurgence for direct liquid cooling. The increasing demands of high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data centers led to higher power densities and heat loads that traditional air cooling struggled to manage efficiently. Today, direct liquid cooling is primarily implemented in two main forms: Direct-to-chip liquid cooling (DLC): This method involves attaching cold plates directly to heat-generating components like CPUs and GPUs. A liquid coolant circulates through these plates, absorbing heat and carrying it away through a closed-loop system. Immersion cooling: Single-phase immersion cooling submerges IT hardware in dielectric fluid that remains liquid throughout the cooling process, transferring heat through external heat exchangers. In contrast, two-phase immersion cooling uses fluids that boil at low temperatures to create vapor that condenses above the tank, offering higher efficiency, but requiring more complex infrastructure
The Air Cooling Era Metal oxide
The Comeback HPC, AI, and ML drive heat demands Data center power densities soar Air cooling reaches limits Liquid cooling renaissance begins
Two Paths Forward Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) Cold plates on CPUs/GPUs Closed-loop circulation
semiconductors emerge Air-cooled rack-mounted servers dominate Liquid cooling demand diminishes Cost-effective air solutions rule
Immersion Cooling Complete hardware submersion Dielectric liquid coolant
1990s – 2000s
2010s – Present
Today’s Solutions
Photo Credit: Eabel Cooling
Photo Credit: TechTarget
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3 When To Use Immersion vs. Direct Liquid Cooling
Immersion cooling isn't universally applicable to every data center scenario. Understanding when it delivers maximum value requires analyzing your specific infrastructure challenges, workload demands, and business objectives. Power Efficiency In power-constrained environments where cooling consumes a disproportionate share of available capacity, immersion cooling's 90% energy reduction can unlock significant additional compute potential. Similarly, when organizations need to double compute capacity within the same physical footprint, the density advantages of immersion cooling become essential rather than merely beneficial. Urban data centers face particular pressure in this regard, as high real estate costs make maximum density utilization financially critical. Water Usage Data centers globally consume 560 billion liters of water annually and could reach 1,200 billion liters by 2030 due to AI workload growth. A typical 100MW data center uses 2 million liters daily, rivaling small towns' consumption. Most centers use evaporative cooling, where water absorbs heat and turns to steam, requiring constant fresh water supply. The industry measures Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) at 1.9 liters per kWh average. Major hyper scalers are adopting water sustainability measures including immersion cooling, which Microsoft research shows can reduce water usage by 31% to 52% compared to traditional air cooling.
Comparison of Data Center Cooling Technologies Air Cooled Data Centers Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC)
Single Phase Immersion Cooling
Power Efficiency
Lowest
Varies
Highest
High (evaporative towers)
Reduced/Variable (can be waterless) Reduced (less server noise) Lower (stable temps, less dust)
Low to None (often waterless)
Water Usage
High (fans, HVAC) Higher (dust, humidity, heat stress)
Near Silent (server area)
Noise Pollution
Lowest (stable, sealed environment)
Equipment Failure Rate
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Operational Simplicity Many organizations discover that immersion cooling's operational simplicity provides unexpected value. Facilities with aging cooling infrastructure face the choice between expensive upgrades to complex chiller plants, raised floors, and air handlers, or transitioning to immersion cooling's streamlined approach with just three main moving parts. The maintenance cost reduction from eliminating multiple systems and mechanical components often surprises organizations accustomed to traditional data center complexity. Additionally, environments where virtually silent operation is required find that immersion cooling's elimination of server fans and air handlers solves noise challenges that traditional approaches cannot address.
Photo Credit: Submer
Reliability and Performance Mission-critical workloads benefit significantly from immersion cooling's reliability improvements. By eliminating dust, moisture, and vibration, immersion cooling protects equipment in ways that traditional approaches cannot match. This protection proves especially valuable in remote or harsh environments where maintenance access is limited, and environmental protection is essential. Organizations seeking to extend equipment lifecycles find that immersion cooling's protective qualities help maximize their IT investments while reducing replacement frequencies. The "sweet spot" occurs when multiple factors align: high-density requirements exceeding 20kW per rack, energy cost pressures, space constraints, and long-term operational goals. When these conditions exist, immersion cooling transitions from an interesting option to a strategic necessity. Standards, Regulatory and Specifications As immersion cooling gains traction, the development and adherence to industry specifications and regulatory compliance become increasingly important. Organizations like the Open Compute Project (OCP) are actively working on standardizing immersion cooling designs, interfaces, and best practices to foster wider adoption and interoperability.
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4 Fun Facts about Immersion
Liquids are Super Cool Heat Conductors Dielectric liquids used in immersion cooling are up to 1,200 times more efficient at conducting heat than air. This means they can pull heat away from IT equipment much more effectively. The liquid is safe, recyclable, biodegradable and long lasting – up to 10 years before replacement is necessary.
Hardware Lives Longer By maintaining more stable and optimal operating temperatures, immersion cooling can extend the lifespan of IT hardware by up to 30%.
Quiet Data Centers? Safe sounds according to American Speech-Language- Hearing Association is 70 A- weighted decibels (dBA) or lower. Exposure to sounds 85 dBA and above is harmful to hearing. Hundreds of servers operating in a small space can create noise levels of up to 96 db(A). Immersion is a quiet sub-50dB(A)
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Space Savers Immersion cooling systems can allow for a 10x increase in server density, meaning more computing power can be packed into a smaller physical footprint. Some estimates suggest it can reduce the physical space needed for cooling equipment by two-thirds to 85 percent.
Waste Heat Can Be Reused
Immersion cooling can capture up to 99% of the waste heat generated by servers. This heat can then be reused for other purposes, like heating buildings, which contributes to greater energy efficiency and sustainability.
Chip Technology Driving Adoption NVIDIA and Intel are
embracing immersion as AI chips grow more powerful, they generate massive heat that threatens system stability and performance, making advanced cooling the critical
bottleneck for data centers.
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5
Reality Check: Myth Busting Immersion Cooling
Myth: Brand-new, unproven technology that's messy and dangerous to work with.
FACT: IBM was dunking computers in dielectric fluid when The Beatles were still together (1966), and Cray patented immersion cooling the year E.T. came out. GRC has been commercially deploying these systems since Obama's first year in office. The liquid coolant is so benign it's used in cosmetics and kitchen counter cleaners.
Technology Maturity and Safety
Myth: Immersion- cooled data centers are noisy and hot places to work.
FACT: These facilities are quieter than a library because server fans (those jet engines of the data center world) are replaced by whisper-quiet pumps. No more shouting over the din or wearing jackets in July.
Working Environment
Myth: Immersion cooling systems are complex with many moving parts, making servicing submerged equipment difficult.
FACT: We've reduced your mechanical symphony to three instruments: a coolant pump, a water pump, and a fan. Most maintenance involves changing one filter annually (less upkeep than your car). Horizontal racks put servers at perfect working height instead of forcing technicians into yoga poses to reach top- mounted gear. It's ergonomic engineering disguised as cooling innovation.
System Complexity and Maintenance
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Myth: Immersion cooling isn't energy- efficient or cost- effective.
FACT: 90% reduction in cooling energy and 41% reduction in total data center power. At $3 per Watt construction cost, the math isn't just compelling. It's undeniable.
Energy Efficiency and Cost
Myth: Liquid damages IT equipment.
FACT: Your servers get spa treatment: protected from dust, moisture, and the vibrations that cause those mysterious 3 AM failures. OEMs are now certifying hardware for immersion because reliability improves, not deteriorates.
Equipment Reliability
Myth: Only suitable for HPC or crypto mining.
FACT: While early adopters were the speed demons of computing, enterprise and cloud operators have discovered what happens when you can pack 100 kW in a single rack without melting the building. Other industries include EdgeAI, Telco, Security, Autonomous cars, etc.
Application Scope
More debunking facts from Unicom Engineering
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6
Growth in Immersion and Customer FAQs
Immersion Cooling is growing 70% faster than other liquid cooling technologies
+46% FY25-28 CAGR
$4,847M
$3,940M
Immersion Cooling
27% 70%
$3,022M
3,473M
Direct Liquid Cooling
2,956M
$2,162M
Rear Door Heat Exchanger
21%
2,349M
$1,295M
1,700M
$745M
875M
555M
$491M
2024 204M 112M 979M
322M
2023 145M 80M 520M
307M 117M 67M
2025 281M 181M
499M
429M
351M
2028
2022
2026
2027
Direct liquid cooling offers largest TAM, seen in traditional DCs, driven by Nvidia’s support for DLC. Immersive liquid cooling for specific use cases requiring higher sustainability shows a higher growth rate jump y/y at 70%.
Source: Dell Oro Group Worldwide Liquid Cooling Market
“I've seen this technology mature from experimental to essential. We're not just building servers anymore-we're engineering platforms that can handle 100kW densities that would melt traditional infrastructure. When customers realize they can double their compute capacity in the same footprint while cutting cooling energy by 90%, immersion cooling stops being a 'nice to have’ to become a competitive advantage.” Rusty Cone, General Manager, VP Business Development, UNICOM Engineering
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DESIGN
Can you have single phase immersion in a retrofit or existing data center with other cooling architectures? Any data center designed with water loops for heat rejection can support single-phase immersion cooling—it's that simple. In fact, single-phase immersion often makes more efficient use of those existing loops, allowing for higher IT density. You can typically run more kilowatts of equipment than you could with traditional cooling methods. -- Rusty Cone General Manager, VP Business Development, UNICOM Engineering Can you have multiple cooling architectures in one data center? It is rare to find any liquid cooling facility that only has one cooling technology deployed. They are almost always a hybrid of air and/or multiple liquid coolant technologies. It may, however, require management of different primary loop requirements. -- Christopher Liljenstolpe, Sr. Director, Data Center Architecture & Sustainability, Cisco
How efficient is heat recovery for single phase immersion? Single phase immersion cooling allows for higher inlet and exit water temperatures. In facilities with a water loops, exit temperatures often exceed 50 ° C, qualifying as high- quality heat suitable for reuse in building heating, swimming pools, and farming, where 50-60 ° C is the target range. Other technologies max out around 40-50 ° C making heat reuse harder and less effective. -- Austin Hipes, VP, Engineering, UNICOM Engineering What is the impact to PUE? We have seen a long term customer from the banking sector with Tier4 data centers reporting an estimated impact on PUE from 1.4 to 1.04 all year, meeting their ESG requirements. -- Maikel Bouricius Chief Growth Officer - Asperitas
Immersion cooling offers energy saving, water saving and space saving
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OPERATE
What happens when a data center runs too hot and needs to shut down? In immersion cooling, the fluid acts as a "thermal flywheel" that maintains safe operational temperatures even during complete cooling system failure. This gives operators time to either repair the cooling infrastructure or conduct an orderly shutdown, minimizing long-term consequences and avoiding the disruptive crash shutdowns common in air-cooled data centers. -- Christopher Liljenstolpe, Sr. Director, Data Center Architecture & Sustainability, Cisco
Is it difficult to work on equipment working with the fluids? Minor service like adding or moving cables can be performed while the server remains in the fluid. Use a server lift to move servers in or out of the immersion rack, similar to conventional air-cooled racks. Movable service rails position horizontally for standard technician service, with excess fluid automatically captured in the rack. -- Jeff Burke, EVP Sales & Marketing, Green Revolution Cooling (GRC) How do IT operations teams maintain standard Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with immersion cooling deployments? The key to reliable SLAs with immersion cooling lies in proper implementation fundamentals: correct installation procedures, appropriate cable management, and using the right accessories for your deployment. Immersion cooling systems offer more predictable performance than traditional air cooling because they eliminate variables like fan failures and temperature fluctuations. At Submer, we've seen IT operations teams successfully maintain 99.9% uptime SLAs across multiple immersion deployments.
PERFORMANCE
What is the ROI for Single Phase Immersion? The OCP TCO tool enables operators to model and compare CAPEX, OPEX and CO2 footprints of different power and cooling strategies and technology options and increases confidence have helps make informed and fact-based decisions. -- Andy Young Chief Technology Officer, Immersed Computing, Asperitas
-- Albert Puig Artola, Chief Technology Officer, Submer
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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Green Revolution Cooling - GRC • Unlocking Efficiency: Single Phase Immersion Cooling in Hyperscale Data Centers • Immersion Cooling’s Financial Impact on AI Deployment • Immersion delivers compute efficiency and resiliency — anywhere • What the Advancement of Immersion Cooling Will Look Like in the Coming Year Asperitas • Immersion cooling showcase demonstrates high cooling efficiency • Asperitas Cools Data Centres at the Edge • What is Immersion Cooling Unicom Engineering • Immersion Cooling: Enhancing AI and Compute Density for Modern Data Centers • Immersion Cooling: Separating Fact from Fiction • The Future of Data Center Cooling: Why Two-Phase Liquid Cooling is a Game-Changer • Breaking Down Liquid and Immersion Cooling Submer • Sustainability as Strategy: why datacenters can’t afford to treat ESG as a side project • Submer debuts at OCP APAC Summit 2025: showcasing end- to-end cooling innovation • Measuring the carbon footprint of datacenters Cisco • Cisco + GRC Optimizing AI performance with Immersion- Cooled Data Centers • Modernize to maximize: 3 business drivers that lead to success • Data Center & Campus Design New Innovations in Power & Cooling Systems Other Resources: • OCP Project” Immersion Requirements 2.0 • Next Generation Green Technologies Immersion Cooling • Shell Immersion Cooling Video
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Customer Success Stories: Viridian Energy
Industry: Energy Sector - Seismic Processing Location: Houston, TX Infrastructure: 4MW Data Center
The Solution Veridien adopted GRC's immersion cooling technology, deploying approximately 100 racks of Nvidia GPU-based servers into GRC's systems. This solution was seamlessly integrated into their existing datacenter, utilizing the raised floor and connecting to their chilled water loop. Each rack was designed to efficiently cool 40 kW of IT load.
The Challenge Veridien faced significant power constraints with their traditional air-cooled solution. The energy- intensive cooling was limiting their operational capacity and preventing efficient expansion. They urgently needed a more energy-efficient cooling method to overcome these limitations and maximize their IT infrastructure's potential.
Measurable Results
Reduction in cooling energy compared to previous air-cooled systems
Increased compute capacity within the same power footprint
90%
Capacity
15 years of successful operation, demonstrating remarkable longevity and reliability, while extending operational life of data center by reallocating power from cooling to IT loads Extending operational life of data center
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A FinTech Pioneer's Journey to Immersion Cooling
Industry: Energy Sector – Financial Location: India Infrastructure: 4MW Data Center
The Challenge: Scaling in a Tropical Climate As one of India's fastest-growing digital payment platforms, this FinTech leader faced critical infrastructure challenges. Trying to process millions of daily transactions in India's tropical climate, their air- cooled data centers were hitting performance and efficiency limits. Rising energy costs, limited capacity for high-density workloads and ambitious sustainability commitments created real urgency. They risked falling short on performance while missing the opportunity to return unused power to the grid.
The Solution: Hybrid Innovation The company chose a ground- breaking hybrid approach combining air cooling, direct contact liquid cooling (DCLC), and liquid immersion cooling across their 4.8MW facility. The immersion setup features 48 Dell 1U servers submerged in dielectric fluid within each Green Revolution Cooling (GRC) tank. A Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) connects four immersion racks, transferring heat from fluid to water, then cooling via rooftop dry coolers. This eliminated traditional HVAC infrastructure while dramatically improving efficiency.
Measurable Results
PUE dropped from 1.6 to as low as 1.1 with immersion
Hybrid model averages 1.27 PUE - a 26% efficiency improvement
PUE 1.1
26% Gain
$ 1.58 megawatts of power savings - enough for 400,000 homes
Immersion-cooled servers achieved 99.9997% reliability - 8x higher than air-cooled counterparts
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Where To Go From Here: Getting Started
The evidence is clear: immersion cooling has evolved from an experimental technology to a proven alternative for high-density, energy-efficient data center operations. With demonstrated deployments spanning over 15 years and measurable benefits maximizing power and water efficiency, the question is no longer whether immersion cooling works, but whether it's right for your specific infrastructure challenges. Immediate Assessment Steps Begin by evaluating your current infrastructure against the key indicators outlined in this paper. Calculate your existing rack densities, cooling energy consumption, and projected growth requirements. Organizations approaching 20kW per rack or planning AI infrastructure deployments should prioritize immersion cooling evaluation. Similarly, facilities where cooling consumes more than 30% of total power usage present compelling economic cases for transition. Pilot Program Approach The most successful immersion cooling adoptions start with targeted pilot programs rather than wholesale infrastructure replacement. Identify a specific high-density workload or constrained facility area where immersion cooling's benefits can be demonstrated and measured. This approach allows organizations to develop operational expertise while building internal confidence in the technology.
To start you must evaluate your workloads and their thermal requirements, conduct an architectural review of your facility, and assess hardware compatibility for immersion
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Technology Partnership Success with immersion cooling requires partnerships with experienced providers who understand both the technology and operational requirements. Evaluate vendors based on their deployment history, technical support capabilities, and ability to integrate with existing infrastructure. Companies like GRC, Submer and Asperitas have decades of commercial deployments, and offer the proven experience necessary for successful implementations. The Path Forward Immersion cooling represents more than just a cooling technology—it's an enabler for the next generation of compute-intensive applications. As AI workloads continue growing in both scale and complexity, the organizations that adopt efficient, high-density cooling solutions today will be best positioned to capitalize on tomorrow's opportunities. The time for theoretical discussions about immersion cooling has passed. With proven deployments, measurable benefits, and growing industry adoption, the focus should shift to implementation planning and execution. For organizations serious about scaling their AI capabilities while maintaining operational efficiency, immersion cooling has transitioned from an interesting option to a strategic imperative.
Immersion cooling represents more than just a cooling technology—it's an enabler for the next generation of compute-intensive applications
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10 Meet the Braintrust
Denise Lee, Vice President, Engineering Sustainability Office, Cisco Denise is Vice President for Cisco’s Engineering Sustainability Office, defining Cisco’s long-term sustainability vision and roadmap. Working on building new business ecosystems and embedding new technology across Cisco’s end-to- end portfolio. She and her team collaborate across every function of the business to develop and create integrated capabilities that serve as the foundation to incubate and scale sustainable products that accelerate the journey to Net Zero for Cisco, its customers and partners. Albert Puig Artola, Chief Technology Officer, Submer Albert is a Computer Science Engineer with a Master in ICT Security and MBA focused on Global Innovation Management. He has over 20 years experience in IT companies and a networking vendor related to the datacenter. One of his main objectives is it to bridge the gap between technology and operations, particularly when integrating disruptive technologies. He aims to align the advantages of adopting new designs with operational changes to effectively address the challenges associated with modern datacenters. Andy Young, CTO Immersed Computing, Asperitas Andy has over 10 years of experience developing liquid cooling and immersion cooling technology for the datacenter and digital infrastructure industry, with a focus on immersion cooling and data center efficiency. Since 2020, he has been part of Asperitas’ core and management team, leading the company new technology program and introducing high performance immersion cooling technology to the market. Andy focuses on technology partnerships and developing new core-IP and is currently engaged in the ASHRAE Liquid cooling subcommittee and Open Compute Project (OCP), where he has the role of co- chair for immersion cooling solutions and co-lead for TCO modelling of liquid cooled data centers. Jeff Burke , EVP Sales & Marketing, Green Revolution Cooling (GRC) Jeff is responsible for business and relationship development activities for GRC, the immersion cooling authority specializing in single-phase immersion cooling. He is an entrepreneur and executive with over 35 years experience. During his career he has managed enterprise data centers, co-location facilities businesses, including co-founding OptiCool Technologies pioneering innovative refrigerant-based RDHxdatacenter cooling solutions. Lior Gendel CEO & Co-Founder, Next Generation Green Technologies (NGGT) With over four decades of experience in the technology industry, Lior possesses a comprehensive background in computer engineering, software development, and networking. Lior worked at Cisco Systems for 29 years, focusing on bringing new technologies to market. Before this he was a co- founder of Netvision, the first commercial ISP in Israel. NGGT's mission is to provide sustainable solutions for the emerging needs of artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). Our portfolio includes vendors specializing in liquid cooling for IT equipment, Hydrogen solutions and Immersion Born/Ready servers designed for HPC and AI.
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Austin Hipes VP, Engineering, UNICOM Engineering Austin leads Product Development, IT Infrastructure, Regulatory Services, and Sales Engineering. He plays a key role in supporting sales design initiatives and educating customers on hardware innovations and emerging technology trends. With over 25 years of experience, Austin specialized in designing systems and solutions for network equipment providers, enterprise storage, hyperconverged systems, data center infrastructure and carrier-grade deployments. Austin actively contributes to industry initiatives. He chairs the Technical Committee for IT Equipment (ITE) within the OCP Cooling Environments Immersion Group, serves on the IT Advisory Council (ITAC) for Dell Technologies, and is a member of Intel’s Channel Board of Advisors (BOA) for Datacenter & AI (DCAI). Rusty Cone General Manager, VP Business Development, UNICOM Engineering Rusty Cone is the General Manager and Vice President of Business Development at UNICOM Engineering. He joined Alliance Systems in 1999 as President and Chief Operating Officer and has since played a key role in the company’s evolution into UNICOM Engineering. With more than two decades of experience in high-tech manufacturing and quality process management, Rusty oversees all aspects of the company’s daily operations including sales and marketing, engineering, finance, operations and customer support.
Cameron Cross Sales Director, Immersion Cooling, Shell Cameron leads the development of our Data Center fluids business, including OEM ecosystem collaborations, product and services development and data center customer growth.
Punith Shivaprasad Product Application Specialist - Process Oil and Wax, Shell Punith is the technical lead for liquid cooling which is part of the global commercial technology lubricants team based in Houston, Texas. He joined Shell in 2007 and provides technology support to customers in the data center industry. Punith has a PhD in civil engineering from University of Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, India, and did postdoctoral research at Clemson University, South Carolina. Christopher Liljenstolpe Sr. Director, Data Center Architecture & Sustainability, Cisco Christopher is the Sr. Director of Next Generation Data Center Design in the Infrastructure and Security Business Unit at Cisco. He is trying to fit the round pegs of next generation ultra-high density power, cooling, connectivity and network fabrics into the square holes that are the reality of physical and logical infrastructure. Over his 30+ years in his career he created Project Calico, the container networking and policy enforcement stack, and was the co-founder of Tigera, built bioinformatics clusters for cancer genomics, worked on early implementations of distributed routing systems, was the chief architect of two major ISPs/Telcos (iMIC/Cable & Wireless and Telstra) and the APAC CTO (IP) for Alcatel. He has co-chaired IETF working groups in both the Operations and Security Areas, was the executive director of the SSIA, been active in the ITU-T, NANOG, and APRICOT, and been a frequent industry conference speaker. 25
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