UII UPDATE 456 | JANUARY 2026
Intelligence Update
Liquid cooling will not outgrow its high-density niche
OPINION
Deployment of direct liquid cooling (DLC, as cold plate or immersion systems) remains overwhelmingly concentrated in applications where air cooling is no longer a practical alternative. As a wave of AI infrastructure was being built, DLC manufacturers invested their engineering resources in maximizing cooling performance for high-performance IT — namely AI training hardware. By comparison, DLC manufacturers have done little to address the unresolved operational issues that hinder DLC adoption for IT applications with differing priorities.
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