Who makes coolant distribution units for AI data centers
Coolant distribution units (in-rack, in-row, 1–2.5 MW+ facility units)
The unit that separates the IT-side (technology) coolant loop from the facility water loop, exchanging heat between them and pumping and filtering the technology-side flow — sized from in-rack and in-row units up to multi-megawatt facility-class units.
The CDU is the boundary of Layer 5: everything upstream (cold plates, manifolds, quick disconnects, hoses) is the technology-side loop it feeds, and everything downstream (chillers, cooling towers, the facility water loop) belongs to Layer 6. Inside, a plate heat exchanger keeps the clean, controlled technology-side coolant physically separate from facility water, while pumps circulate the technology-side flow and filters protect the cold plates from particulates. CDUs come in three form factors — in-rack units serving a single rack, in-row units serving several racks, and facility-class units in the 1–2.5 MW-plus range serving a whole row or hall — and the choice among them is a design decision driven by rack density and facility layout rather than a strict scale progression. As GPU racks moved from air to liquid cooling, CDU capacity requirements rose sharply, and controls (temperature setpoints, redundant pumps, leak response) became as important as the mechanical design. Investors should watch which vendors can scale from smaller in-rack or in-row units to facility-class CDUs, since that is a different engineering and manufacturing problem, and note that some server integrators build CDUs in-house for their own rack designs.
AI delta: The shift of AI accelerator racks from air to liquid cooling pushed CDU capacity requirements up sharply and pulled facility-class (1–2.5 MW-plus) units into more deployments alongside smaller in-rack and in-row units.
Companies on this part (24)
| Company | Role | Ownership | Ticker | Price | 1d | Confidence | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airedale · unit of Modine | manufacturer | subsidiary | MOD* | inferred | |||
| Auras | manufacturer | public | 3324.TWO | 1360 TWD | +0.4% | inferred | |
| Daikin | manufacturer | public | 6367.T | 21185 JPY | -0.7% | inferred | |
| Delta Electronics | manufacturer | public | 2308.TW | 1560 TWD | -3.4% | inferred | |
| Envicool | manufacturer | public | 002837.SZ | 44.38 CNY | +1.8% | inferred | |
| Foxconn (Hon Hai) | manufacturer | public | 2317.TW | 245 TWD | -1.6% | inferred | |
| Johnson Controls | manufacturer | public | JCI | 144 USD | +0.1% | inferred | |
| Kaori | manufacturer | public | 8996.TW | 1560 TWD | -7.4% | inferred | |
| Mitsubishi Electric | manufacturer | public | 6503.T | 4770 JPY | -2.3% | reported | |
| Motivair · unit of Schneider Electric | manufacturer | subsidiary | SU.PA* | inferred | |||
| Munters | manufacturer | public | MTRS.ST | 131 SEK | +4.0% | inferred | |
| Nidec | manufacturer | public | 6594.T | 1705 JPY | -0.5% | inferred | |
| nVent | manufacturer | public | NVT | 125 USD | -2.4% | inferred | |
| Supermicro | in house | public | SMCI | 32.94 USD | -1.7% | inferred | in-house |
| Trane | manufacturer | public | TT | 445 USD | -0.9% | inferred | |
| Vertiv | manufacturer | public | VRT | 194 USD | -0.2% | inferred | |
| Airsys | manufacturer | private | inferred | ||||
| Boyd | manufacturer | private | inferred | ||||
| Chilldyne | manufacturer | private | inferred | ||||
| CoolIT | manufacturer | private | inferred | ||||
| Huawei | manufacturer | private | inferred | ||||
| LiquidStack | manufacturer | private | inferred | ||||
| Rittal | manufacturer | private | inferred | ||||
| Stulz | manufacturer | private | inferred |
Who competes here
The same table read the other way: every company above competes for coolant distribution units sockets. Confidence tags matter — an inferred placement is a lead, not a confirmed rivalry.
Seen in real machines
coolant distribution units is named in 9 of the rack teardowns and supercomputer breakdowns on this site. Each line below is a piece of that machine. The companies shown are the ones named on that line, not necessarily the maker of this part.
- Nvidia GB300 NVL72 · rack teardown
- CDU (in-rack or in-row) — Vertiv, Motivair, CoolIT, nVent, Boyd, Delta Electronics, Nidec, Supermicro, Foxconn (Hon Hai), Auras
- El Capitan · supercomputer
- In-cabinet liquid cooling (100% fanless direct liquid cooling, 29 coolant distribution units) — HPE
- Frontier · supercomputer
- In-cabinet liquid cooling (direct cold plates on all node components, shared coolant distribution units; 25 CDUs, each serving three cabinets) — HPE
- Aurora · supercomputer
- In-cabinet liquid cooling (cold plates, manifolds, quick-disconnect blades, one CDU per up to four cabinets, facility water up to 32 C) — HPE
- LUMI · supercomputer
- In-cabinet direct liquid cooling (cabinet cooling manifolds, quick-connect blades and a coolant distribution unit for the Cray EX cabinets) — HPE
- Leonardo · supercomputer
- In-cabinet liquid cooling (XH2000 direct liquid cooling on warm water: cold plate on every 1U blade, hydraulic chassis with heat exchanger, secondary manifolds, non-spill quick disconnects) — Eviden/Atos
- Isambard-AI · supercomputer
- In-cabinet direct liquid cooling (cold plates on compute and network blades, dripless quick connects, coolant distribution units serving up to four cabinets each, up to 400 kW per cabinet) — HPE
- Perlmutter · supercomputer
- In-cabinet direct liquid cooling (cold plates on the compute blades, liquid-cooled switch blades and ports, coolant distribution units) — HPE
- Doudna (NERSC-10) · supercomputer
Nearby parts
- Previous in layer: Hoses, tubing, fittings, valves
- Next in layer: CDU internals: plate heat exchangers, pumps, filters
- Layer: Layer 5 — Liquid cooling (IT-side: chip to CDU)
From the blog
- Part of the day: Coolant distribution units 2026-10-08
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- Endeavour partners with US desalination firm Trevi to turn data center waste heat into clean water — Data Center Dynamics, 2026-10-23Endeavour is partnering with Trevi to convert waste heat from its US data center facilities into clean water.
- Interview: TI sees liquid cooling shift to tray-level control in AI data centers — DigiTimes, 2026-10-23Texas Instruments stated that the trend in AI data centers is moving toward granular, tray-level thermal control rather than relying solely on centralized CDU management.
- [AI Infrastructure Insight] How AI infrastructure will be designed for the future — newsroom:sk-hynix, 2026-10-22Effective real-world AI application requires improvements across faster compute, wider memory bandwidth, higher-performance networking, better storage, and more stable power infrastructure.
- Walrus Pump sees slower demand for higher-capacity AI cooling pumps — DigiTimes, 2026-10-22The expectation is that Walrus Pump will see slower demand for high-capacity AI cooling pumps despite the increasing mainstream adoption of liquid cooling in AI servers.
- Trane Technologies to Acquire Cancoil, Strengthening Supply Chain Resiliency and Thermal Management Expertise — newsroom:trane, 2026-10-21Trane Technologies plans to acquire Cancoil to bolster its capabilities in thermal management and supply chain resilience for cooling solutions.
- Water harvesting firm Aquaria launches pilot for modular onsite water supply system for data center sector — Data Center Dynamics, 2026-10-21Aquaria is launching a pilot modular onsite water supply system specifically designed for the data center sector.
- Nvidia launches DSX POD, claims the Vera-Rubin reference architecture will make AI data centers more water and energy efficient — Data Center Dynamics, 2026-10-21Nvidia announced the DSX POD, claiming the Vera-Rubin reference architecture will improve the water and energy efficiency of AI data centers.
- Qisda integrates four companies to build scalable rack-scale AI solutions — DigiTimes, 2026-10-21Qisda Group is forming a consortium of four companies to build scalable rack-level AI solutions integrating high-speed connectivity, modular compute, and liquid cooling.
- xMems solid-state cooling chips for data centers and Edge devices go into production — Data Center Dynamics, 2026-10-20xMems has started manufacturing solid-state cooling chips designed for data centers and edge devices.
- Sponsored: Ablecom releases whitepaper introducing high-efficiency RDHx liquid cooling solution — Data Center Dynamics, 2026-10-20The whitepaper presents a high-efficiency liquid cooling solution designed to help data center operators manage heat loads up to 75 kW per rack and reduce PUE.
Questions about coolant distribution units
- What are coolant distribution units?
- The unit that separates the IT-side (technology) coolant loop from the facility water loop, exchanging heat between them and pumping and filtering the technology-side flow — sized from in-rack and in-row units up to multi-megawatt facility-class units.
- Which companies make coolant distribution units for AI data centers?
- This catalog lists 24 companies on Coolant distribution units, 16 of them with listed equity: Airedale, Auras, Daikin, Delta Electronics, Envicool, Foxconn (Hon Hai), Johnson Controls, Kaori, Mitsubishi Electric, Motivair, and 14 more.
- How does AI change demand for coolant distribution units?
- The shift of AI accelerator racks from air to liquid cooling pushed CDU capacity requirements up sharply and pulled facility-class (1–2.5 MW-plus) units into more deployments alongside smaller in-rack and in-row units.
- How reliable are these coolant distribution units supplier placements?
- The 24 placements on this part break down as 1 reported, 23 inferred. "disclosed" means the company or a filing says so; "reported" comes from trade press or a reference-design list; "inferred" is a taxonomy lead with no citation yet.
Sources: placements without a source URL come from the taxonomy seed and are tagged accordingly. How this data is built.· Markdown · JSON