Danish researchers develop 3D-printed vapor chamber for two-phase liquid cooling

Researchers have developed a 3D-printed cooling component for liquid-cooled data centers.

The Danish Technological Institute and Heatflow, together with Open Engineering from Belgium and Fraunhofer IWU from Germany, have developed and tested a 3D-printed cooling component for data centers and high-performance computers.

The solution uses a coolant that evaporates on the hot surface. The vapor rises, removing heat, and then condenses again, using gravity to return to where the heat originates. The key component in the new system is an evaporator that Heatflow and the Danish Technological Institute have developed and manufactured using 3D printing.

The solution uses passive two-phase cooling and achieved a cooling capacity of 600 watts in tests – 50 percent more than the original target of 400 watts. No pumps are used, reducing energy requirements for cooling.

The project is part of the AM2PC European research initiative. The project is supported by M-ERA.NET, with a grant from the Danish Innovation Fund.

The focus of the project has been to develop and manufacture the evaporator and validate its performance.

M-ERA.NET is an EU-funded network established to support European research programs and funding in materials science and engineering. The Danish Technological Institute is a self-owned and non-profit research and development institute.

The solution removes heat at temperatures between 60–80°C (140-176°F), potentially offering utility in district heating schemes relying on waste heat from data centers.

Trane Debuts CDU for Liquid-Cooled Data Centres in APAC

Trane has launched a locally developed coolant distribution unit for Asia-Pacific data centres, targeting AI workloads and liquid cooling efficiency.

Trane Technologies has launched a new coolant distribution unit designed specifically for liquid-cooled data centres in the Asia-Pacific region, as operators grapple with rising rack densities driven by AI and high-performance computing.

The DCDA series is the first locally developed CDU from Trane Technologies for the regional market and reflects a growing focus on liquid cooling as air-based approaches reach their limits.

Announced in Shanghai, the DCDA series is positioned as a flexible and energy-efficient platform that can support hyperscale and AI-focused facilities.

The company says the system has been engineered to address both the thermal demands of high-density computing and the integration challenges that come with complex liquid cooling environments.

The launch comes as global demand for direct liquid cooling accelerates.

UBS forecasts a compound annual growth rate of 51% for the data centre direct liquid cooling market between 2024 and 2030, driven by the rapid expansion of AI workloads and power-hungry server architectures.

Nautilus Data Technologies secures new funding

Data center firm Nautilus Data Technologies has secured new funding.

The company this week announced that it has closed a Series B financing round, led by Pangaea Ventures. The size of the investment wasn’t shared.

Nautilus said the capital will be used to support scaling manufacturing and order fulfillment, expanding sales, marketing, and channel partnerships, and accelerate ongoing product innovation.

Originally a data center developer, Nautilus has been pivoting to providing infrastructure for other developers. In 2024, the company launched its EcoCore product line featuring modular data center systems and cooling equipment.

The company’s cooling tech was originally deployed at its barge-based facility in California, which uses river-cooling. Launched in 2021, that facility was put up for sale in 2024. Nautilus has also dropped plans for a river-cooled facility in Maine.

A provider of infrastructure, Nautilus is providing cooling systems to the Start Campus site in Sines, Portugal.

Founded in 2000, Pangaea Ventures is a Canadian venture capital firm focused on “high-potential hard tech ventures.”

The firm has previously invested in various chemical, energy, carbon capture, agriculture, pharma, and healthcare companies.

Electric vehicle company looks to move into AI services, deploys immersion-cooled container

A modular containerized data center has been deployed in Texas by an electric vehicle company expanding into the AI sector.

Nasdaq-listed Envirotech Vehicles (EVTV) this week announced the successful delivery, installation, and connection of a 40-foot AI data center container purpose-built for immersion-cooled computing.

The 500kW container is connected and energized. Though full details haven’t been shared, previous announcements suggest the container is located in Texas at an operating oil field site that produces on-site natural gas from underground reserves.

The container was placed in partnership with Azio AI. The deployment is part of a wider program of self-owned behind-the-meter deployments.

Under the current structure, Azio AI supplies and sells compute hardware while Envirotech Vehicles owns the deployed compute assets.

Envirotech Vehicles provides purpose-built electric vehicles, including vans, buses, and trucks. Last year, the firm announced plans to move into the drone sector. Plans to partner with Azio were announced late last year.

Azio AI provides enterprise GPU servers, AI compute clusters, modular data infrastructure solutions, and sovereign compute services. The company is a spin-out of Azio Corp, which provides keyboards and other personal computing hardware.

Bitfarms files to convert cryptomine into AI data center

Cryptomining firm Bitfarms is set to demolish a former Bitcoin mining facility in Washington state in order to redevelop it into an HPC/AI data center.

The Toronto-based company secured permission from the city of Moses Lake on January 20, according to a city planning document, having previously announced the project last November.

The revamped facility is expected to be completed by December 2026, adding to the region’s growing number of data centers that are making use of Washington's cooler climate and relatively low-cost power.

In a public hearing on January 28, the city of Moses Lake revealed the proposed Bitfarms data center will be located on six acres that will include a Tier III building of up to 100,000 square feet (9,290 sqm) and office space.

Bitfarms plans to wind down its Bitcoin mining operations over the next two years, having appointed HPC/AI specialist James Bond to oversee the transition of its facilities in the United States, Canada, and Argentina.

The pivot comes after Bitfarms reported a net loss of $46 million in its latest third-quarter earnings, with Gagnon saying at the time that AI infrastructure offered a far greater return than cryptomining.

“Despite being less than one percent of our total developable portfolio, we believe that the conversion of just our Washington site to GPU-as-a-Service could potentially produce more net operating income than we have ever generated through Bitcoin mining,” he said.

20MW off-grid data center planned outside Salt Lake City, Utah

An off-grid, natural gas-powered data center could be coming to Utah.

Officials in the city of Santaquin this week held a community open house to answer questions about a planned data center in the area.

The Summit Ridge Data Center is set to be developed on land at 15372 S. Ridge Farms Road. Full details are unclear, but the 20MW+ project is being developed by the Data Center Power Company. The development will use a closed-loop cooling system.

Santaquin is a city in Utah and Juab counties, some 65 miles (104.6km) south of Salt Lake City.

According to local press, the project was actually approved by the city back in 2024 with little fanfare, with a site plan approved last summer. However, many local residents are reportedly only hearing about it for the first time this week.

Santaquin Mayor Dan Olsen said this week that there were 11 public meetings held on the topic, with the last one on January 6.

The campus will not be grid-connected, according to Olsen.

1GW data center campus proposed in Alberta, Canada

A gigawatt-scale, off-grid, natural gas-powered data center campus could be coming to Alberta, Canada.

The town of Olds this week announced that Synapse Data Center Inc. has proposed a 1GW data center development. The campus, according to the company and filings with the Alberta government, would total ten 100MW buildings and some two million sq ft (185,805 sqm) of space.

Olds is a town in central Alberta within Mountain View County. It is approximately 61 km (38 mi) south of Red Deer and 90 km (56 mi) north of Calgary.

The campus could see investments totaling CA$10 billion (US$7.3bn), though there were no details of how it would be funded.

The first phase could be ready by mid-2026. The facility is set to be powered by a closed-cycle natural gas system and not connected to the local energy grid. The site would utilize a closed-loop design for its cooling.

Olds has previously announced a partnership with Data District Inc., a developer of modular, scalable data centers that colocate with energy assets. The company, a division of Swiss-based manager Alcral AG, is expected to launch its own campus in Olds in mid-2026. That development could also reach 1GW, largely powered via natural gas.

Lucend raises $3.3m to fund US roll-out of AI platform for data center efficiency

Lucend has raised $3.3 million to fund the US roll-out of an AI-powered platform that it says can boost data center cooling efficiency and cut electricity bills.

The vendor is using cash from its seed round to launch its Transparent AI platform in the US, and says it can help businesses “illuminate complex operational environments” and empower data center operators with “the intelligence they need to act with trust, accuracy, and confidence.”

The company’s platform “analyzes billions of data points daily and provides prescriptive recommendations that data center operators can review and choose whether or not to implement,” said Jasper de Vries, co-founder of Lucend.

The system is already in operation in markets outside the US, having been installed at data centers run by companies such as Digital Realty, Global Switch, and T5 in Europe and Asia, Lucend said.

This has enabled the company to collect data from different climates and designs, working with closed-loop systems, adiabatic cooling designs, cooling and electrical assets like chillers, IACs, UPSs, and generators, or data points like valve openings, fan speeds, temperature setpoints, and pressures.

Lucend said its existing global customers have achieved a 25 percent reduction in power use, a 30 percent reduction in water, and seen power use effectiveness improve.

Formerly known as Coolgradient, Lucend is based in the Netherlands, and has raised the seed funding in a round led by Remarkable Ventures Climate (RVC), with support from Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Fund, New Climate Ventures, Avesta, and Stepchange, as well as existing investor, 4impact capital.

TikTok suffers data center outage in US

TikTok has suffered a data center outage in the US.

As reported by The Verge, among other publications, the social media platform has confirmed that issues experienced with its app have been related to a power outage at one of its US data centers.

The issues showed up just days after the TikTok US spin-off - TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC - was finalized, enabling continued operations in the country.

Posting on X, TikTok USDS said: "Since yesterday we’ve been working to restore our services following a power outage at a US data center impacting TikTok and other apps we operate. We’re working with our data center partner to stabilize our service. We’re sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon.”

Update -

In a follow up post, TikTok USDS noted that the power outage had led to a network issue. "While the network has been recovered, the outage caused a cascading systems failure that we've be working to resolve together with our data center partner.“