CHINA FACES A DATA CENTER COOLING CRISIS AMID THE AI BOOM

China is accelerating the construction of data centers to meet AI demand but is facing a cooling crisis due to excessively high power density.

• The Huawei Ascend 910B/910C chip consumes about 310 W, and a chip cluster can push rack power density above 15 kW, even up to 30 kW. Nvidia’s GB200 GPU consumes up to 2,700 W, and the upcoming Rubin Ultra is expected to be even higher.
• Traditional fan-based air cooling systems are no longer efficient enough, making liquid cooling, especially cold plate cooling, the primary trend.
• According to IDC 2025, China’s liquid-cooled server market reached US2.37billionin2024,a672.37billionin2024,a6716.2 billion by 2029 (an average annual growth of 46.8%).
• The government has set a PUE target of under 1.25 to optimize energy efficiency. The closer the PUE is to 1, the more efficient it is.
• Cold plate cooling accounted for 95% of the market in 2024 due to low retrofitting costs and easy integration. Immersion cooling has potential but requires custom servers, increasing operational risks. Alibaba is developing immersion cooling for extremely heavy tasks.
• The current popular solution is a hybrid approach: combining cold plates for high-consumption chips and air cooling for auxiliary components.
• The challenge lies in choosing between single-phase (stable, easy to operate) and two-phase (more efficient but more complex) liquid cooling.
• Another major issue is the lack of unified standards and supply chain dependency. 3M’s decision to stop producing PFAS in 2025 puts the coolant supply at risk. The price of PFAS is about US$20,000 per ton, while domestic suppliers are scarce.
• At the Asia Data Center Conference in July 2025, Zhang Peng, CTO of Sugon Data Innovation, admitted that coordinating systems across multiple standards complicates data center construction.
• Despite many difficulties, liquid cooling is still seen as a necessary stepping stone for AI, aligned with China’s 2060 carbon neutrality goal.
• 📌 China is facing an energy challenge as AI drives massive power consumption in data centers: Nvidia’s GB200 GPUs consume up to 2,700 W, with racks reaching 30 kW. Huawei’s Ascend 910B/910C chips have similar power demands. The liquid cooling market is expected to reach $2.37 billion in 2024 and grow to $16.2 billion by 2029. Direct-to-chip cooling accounts for 95% of the market share, while hybrid air-water cooling is emerging as a key solution. However, the lack of standards, supply chain risks, and high costs remain major barriers.