A cooling system designed by California-based startup Ferveret is inspired by nuclear reactor technology and aims to improve data center sustainability, as data centers are projected to use 9% to 17% of U.S. electricity by 2030. The liquid cooling solution is anticipated to replace traditional air-cooling systems in data centers. The approach aims to cool chips using no water and significantly less electricity.

The Adaptive Phase Cooling (APC) system submerges servers in a specialized liquid that produces small, frequently detaching bubbles to enhance heat transfer. Recent research demonstrated that APC delivered a 15% improvement in computational power efficiency compared to state-of-the-art liquid cooling solutions. By combining those savings with Ferveret’s power control system to optimize operating conditions, data centers can increase the yield of tokens— small bits of text or data — from artificial intelligence models by 35% with the same amount of power.

The technology is adapted from the subcooled boiling process deployed in nuclear reactors called subcooled boiling. The liquid used has a low boiling point, no toxic chemicals and yields smaller bubbles relative to other immersion cooling approaches to accelerate heat transfer.

The APC systems are provided in small boxes, each of which houses one server. The modular systems simplify operation and maintenance, while control software adjusts the power going to each server in real-time to further enhance efficiency.