Green Data Center Cooling Solutions: Advanced Liquid Cooling for AI Infrastructure

Data center water cooling uses liquid cooling systems to remove heat from servers and other IT equipment. Compared with traditional air cooling, data center liquid cooling transfers heat more efficiently, making it well suited for AI, high-performance computing (HPC), cloud services, and other high-density computing environments. As computing demands continue to grow, data centers face new cooling challenges that require more advanced data center cooling solutions.

Cooling Challenges in Modern Data Centers

AI and HPC workloads are driving rack power densities to unprecedented levels, pushing conventional air and single-phase liquid cooling systems closer to their practical limits. Key challenges include:

• Soaring Computing Density

As more computing power is installed within a standard rack footprint, the resulting heat load can exceed what traditional air cooling can remove efficiently. Across the broader data center industry, average annual PUE remains around 1.5, showing that reducing supporting energy use is still a major efficiency challenge.

• Single-Phase Liquid Cooling Bottlenecks

Single-Phase liquid cooling typically relies on sensible heat transfer, meaning the coolant carries heat away by warming without changing phase. Cooling kilowatt-class chips this way requires higher flow rates and fluid velocities, driving up pump energy consumption and making pressure drop and leak risk harder to manage.

• Power Constraints and Operating Costs

Cooling accounts for a significant share of a data center’s electricity consumption. When total facility power is limited by grid capacity, every watt used for cooling leaves less power available for servers and GPUs. Cooling efficiency therefore dictates both operating costs and the total compute capacity you can deploy within your power budget. 

To overcome the limits of air cooling and the high-flow demands of single-phase liquid cooling, CreAlien developed W2PC.

CreAlien W2PC (DI Water Two-Phase Cooling)

CreAlien’s W2PC (DI Water Two-Phase Cooling) is a proprietary data center liquid cooling solution developed for high-density computing environments. Key innovative  technologies of the W2PC system include:

• DI Water Two-Phase Cooling Cold Plates

The cold plates utilize the latent heat of vaporization, absorbing massive heat as DI water changes into vapor. This efficiently removes extreme chip heat loads at significantly lower flow rates than single-phase cooling. 

• In-Rack and In-Row Coolant Distribution Units (CDUs)

CreAlien offers in-rack CDUs for rack-level cooling and in-row CDUs for higher-capacity, multi-rack deployments, matching different data center scales.

• Chiller-Less, Free Cooling Ready Design

W2PC’s warm-water operation allows the system to operate without energy-intensive chillers and supports free cooling when outdoor conditions permit, significantly reducing cooling power consumption, infrastructure requirements, and capital expenditures (CAPEX).

• PFAS-Free Cooling

W2PC uses non-toxic, PFAS-free DI water as its cooling medium to ensure environmental compliance and advance green data center operations.

W2PC in Data Center Operations

The operational impact of efficient heat removal can be seen in several key areas, including:

• Improving Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)

Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) measures how efficiently a data center uses electricity. The closer the PUE value is to 1, the more energy is directed toward computing equipment rather than supporting infrastructure such as cooling systems. As governments and industry organizations continue to promote green data center cooling, improving PUE has become an important operational objective.

To direct more of their available power to servers and GPUs, high-density data center operators pursuing PUE below 1.1 are moving beyond conventional air and single-phase systems.

Designed with chiller-less warm water cooling, W2PC helps reduce cooling energy consumption. The system has demonstrated a PUE of 1.072 through proof-of-concept (POC) testing and has the potential to achieve PUE values as low as 1.03 under suitable operating conditions.

• Lower Operating Costs (OPEX)

Improving cooling efficiency does more than just reduce electricity consumption—it allows operators to deploy more computing capacity within existing power budgets. 

For a data center operating at a constant 1 GW IT load, every 0.1 reduction in PUE saves approximately 876 million kWh of electricity annually. At an electricity rate of approximately US$0.115 (approx. NT$4) per kWh, this  translates to  over US$100 million (approx. NT$3.5 billion) in annual energy cost savings. By significantly lowering recurring OPEX, W2PC delivers a compelling return on investment (ROI) for higher-efficiency cooling infrastructure. 

• Lowering Cost-per-Token for AI Workloads 

Cost per token measures the expense of generating one token of AI output. When facility grid power is capped, operators improve profitability by maximizing AI output per watt.

Every watt saved on cooling is reallocated directly to GPU compute. By reducing cooling power and delivering superior thermal stability under sustained peak loads, W2PC leaves more power available for GPU computing—helping generate more tokens per watt, lowering the Cost-per-Token, and reducing overall Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

• Simplifying Deployment

W2PC is designed for plug-and-play deployment without requiring raised floors or complex piping infrastructure. This simplifies installation, shortens deployment time, and reduces infrastructure requirements for both new greenfield facilities and existing data center upgrades.

Proven in Real-World Deployments

W2PC is actively deployed across academic institutions and diverse industrial environments. Representative applications include:

• National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) – Green HPC Demonstration Site

W2PC was deployed at National Cheng Kung University’s Macronix Hall to establish a green high-performance computing demonstration site, showcasing energy-efficient cooling for AI and HPC applications.

• Commercial Enterprise – Smart Business Transformation and Server Deployment

CreAlien implemented W2PC as a plug-and-play liquid cooling system for enterprise computing nodes, supporting quiet, reliable, and energy-efficient operation.

• Precision Machinery – AI-Powered Smart Manufacturing

W2PC provided critical thermal management for AI computing equipment in precision machinery operations, supporting on-site AI deployment and factory digital transformation.

Interested in learning how W2PC can support your data center liquid cooling infrastructure?  Contact us to discuss the right data center cooling solution for your next deployment.