**January–June 2026: AI computing power density continued to break through the physical limits of air cooling, and combined with national mandatory control requirements for PUE and green computing in intelligent computing centers, liquid cooling officially shifted from an optional upgrade to a mandatory standard for new large-scale intelligent computing centers. The mass production of NVIDIA's Rubin all-liquid-cooling platform drove six core tracks — cold plates, piping/pumps/valves, CDUs and coolants, liquid cooling pumps and compressors, chillers and terminal temperature control, and monitoring & control systems — into a synchronized large-scale volume ramp-up cycle. Over the past four months, leading enterprises in the industry chain have concentrated on launching new products, landing large computing power orders, and completing core technology certifications, with the domestic substitution process comprehensively accelerating. Meanwhile, with the large-scale commercialization of liquid cooling systems, standardized testing of all components, strict factory verification, and full-lifecycle operation and maintenance testing have become rigid industry demands — the core key to ensuring stable operation of ultra-high-power computing clusters, avoiding liquid leakage downtime risks, and reducing long-term O&M costs. This article focuses on the six major liquid cooling sub-tracks, combining new regulations and technological developments in the component testing industry, to sort out the latest industrial changes, technological breakthroughs, and market development trends for industry customers and partners.**
**I. Cold Plate Track: Microchannels and Composite High-Thermal-Conductivity Materials Become Standard for High-End Computing; Full-Dimensional Testing Ensures Mass Production Quality**
As the core carrier for direct chip heat exchange, cold plates are the highest-value component in whole-machine liquid cooling. Over the past four months, core industry changes have concentrated on four directions: process upgrading, leading enterprise certification, batch supply, and standardized testing implementation. Component testing has officially been incorporated into core industry mass production standards.
1. **Accelerated Technology Iteration:** Adapting to the 227kW single-rack ultra-high power demand of the Rubin platform, microchannel cold plates have comprehensively replaced traditional conventional flow channel cold plates, with heat exchange efficiency improved by over 40%; copper-diamond composite cold plates and ultra-thin brazed cold plates have been batch-introduced into 3000W+ high-power GPU cooling scenarios, solving chip local hotspot challenges. Refined flow channels and anti-clogging processes have become core competitive barriers.
2. **Leading Enterprise Certification Landed:** Siquan New Materials and Sinomatech completed full-dimensional rigorous certification for NVIDIA's Rubin platform, possessing batch supply qualifications for high-end AI server cold plates; Boway Alloy's GB300-specific liquid cooling plate materials passed customer verification and entered small-batch delivery in May, while simultaneously laying out a copper-based composite heat dissipation substrate supply chain. Inspur and Sugon's self-developed liquid cooling cold plates support their own 200kW-class whole racks, with Q1 supporting the delivery of tens-of-billions-level liquid cooling server orders.
3. **Comprehensive Testing System Upgrade to Avoid Core Operational Risks:** In Q2 2026, the industry uniformly improved cold plate factory testing standards, focusing on four core items: flow channel cleanliness testing, pressure-resistant burst testing, thermal resistance consistency testing, and microchannel clogging inspection. Past industry frequent issues such as system pressure drop increase, local uneven heat dissipation, and long-term thermal decay mostly originated from cold plate factory impurity residue and flow channel precision deviation. At present, leading manufacturers have achieved 100% factory full inspection of cold plates, using high-low temperature cycle pressure testing to simulate annual room operation conditions, eliminating cold plate deformation, leakage, and heat exchange failure risks under high-load computing scenarios, and ensuring chip heat dissipation stability.
4. **Market Demand Structure Changes:** Single-phase cold plate liquid cooling still holds over 70% market share, with existing air-cooled room retrofits and high-speed 1.6T optical module liquid cooling supporting new increments; immersion-specific large-size cold plates are simultaneously accelerating R&D to adapt to ten-thousand-card full-immersion intelligent computing cluster construction needs.
**II. Piping and Pump/Valve Track: Precision Testing Eliminates Leakage Risks; Standardized Testing of Prefabricated Integrated Components Implemented**
Piping and valves form the "blood vessels" of the liquid cooling system circulation, directly determining system sealing and long-term O&M safety. Over the past four months, the industry has shown trends of prefabrication, cross-industry capacity expansion, anti-leakage standardization, and normalized testing. Fatigue performance and sealing performance testing of piping and valves have become the first line of defense for safe room operation.
1. **Piping Product Upgrades:** Traditional rubber hoses are gradually switching to stainless steel corrugated pipes and integrated prefabricated manifolds. NVIDIA's new-generation platform eliminates ordinary hoses in favor of metal hard pipes to reduce leakage risks; Chuanhuan Technology and Feilong share have reused new energy vehicle high-low temperature resistant sealed piping technology for data center liquid cooling, with stable mass production yield and batch supply to leading CDU manufacturers. Prefabricated integrated manifolds integrate flow distribution, valves, and sensor interfaces, with modular delivery shortening room construction cycles and significantly increasing single-rack piping value.
2. **Domestic Breakthroughs in Precision Valves:** Liquid cooling-specific shut-off valves, flow control valves, and quick-connect blind couplings have achieved large-scale domestic substitution; negative-pressure anti-leakage valve groups have become standard for rooms; multi-channel diverter valves control flow deviation to within ±5%, solving the pain point of uneven heat dissipation across multiple cold plates.
3. **Specialized Testing Avoids Fatal Safety Hazards:** Piping joint fatigue failure and sealing leakage are high-risk hazards in liquid cooling rooms — even tiny leaks can cause tens-of-thousands-level computing equipment damage and cluster downtime. In May 2026, the industry popularized piping pulse fatigue testing, whole-machine airtightness testing, and high-low temperature sealing stability testing, using tens of thousands of pressure pulses to simulate long-term cyclic conditions and investigate piping burst, valve sticking, and joint loosening hazards. Meanwhile, prefabricated piping assemblies achieve integrated factory testing, eliminating on-site debugging and leak detection, greatly reducing construction and later O&M risks.
4. **Continuous Order Release:** With the concentrated start of large numbers of intelligent computing centers in Q2, piping and valve manufacturers' order delivery cycles have lengthened, and the industry has generally started adding new production lines for capacity expansion. The high-elasticity logic of component "water sellers" continues to be realized, with standardized testing production lines supporting batch delivery quality.
**III. CDU and Coolant Track: Dual Testing System Implemented; Core Media and Equipment Quality Controllable**
CDU (Coolant Distribution Unit) is the core distribution hub of the liquid cooling system, and coolant determines long-term system stability and O&M costs. Both sub-tracks are simultaneously welcoming standardization and normalization inflection points, with a dual system of equipment performance testing + media quality testing comprehensively implemented, becoming a rigid industry access standard.
**(I) CDU Module: Large Capacity, Modularization, and Flexible Expansion Become Mainstream; Whole-Machine Performance Testing Standardized**
1. **Concentrated New Product Launches:** At MWC 2026 in March, ZTE launched a 400kW–2MW flexible expansion modular CDU, supporting 2–5 cabinet parallel deployment, adapting to high-density computing clusters, and solving the pain points of difficult expansion and high upfront investment of traditional liquid cooling equipment; Envicool, as a core participating enterprise in liquid cooling industry standards, received Intel official certification for its self-developed CDU products, firmly ranking in the domestic CDU first tier.
2. **Delivery Model Transformation:** The industry is shifting from integrated whole-machine delivery to decoupled modular delivery, with CDU, cold plates, and piping independently selectable, reducing computing manufacturers' risk of being bound to a single supplier and adapting to standardized AI cluster batch construction.
3. **Whole-Machine Testing Ensures Distribution Precision:** Current CDU equipment fully implements factory full-item testing, focusing on flow distribution uniformity, pressure stability, temperature control precision, and load adaptability, eliminating uneven cooling and flow imbalance during multi-cabinet parallel operation, and ensuring full-cluster heat dissipation consistency. Simultaneously, long-term no-load and full-load aging tests are implemented to adapt to 7×24 uninterrupted computing operation scenarios.
4. **Overseas Market Breakthrough:** Gaolan's modular CDU and prefabricated piping systems have achieved batch supply to North American overseas computing rooms, simultaneously covering data centers and semiconductor temperature control dual tracks, opening overseas incremental space.
**(II) Coolant: Authoritative Certification + Media Testing Dual Guarantee; Eliminating System Contamination Failure**
1. **Working Fluid Certification Landed:** In June 2026, Intel jointly released single-phase cold plate liquid cooling working fluid verification results with leading enterprises, establishing an industry quality benchmark for coolants. Multiple domestic coolant manufacturers' low-corrosion pure water working fluids and synthetic working fluids passed NVIDIA and Intel platform certifications, comprehensively replacing imported refrigerants; 45℃ high-temperature warm water coolant solutions are being widely promoted, adapting to the Rubin platform's chiller-free dry cooling architecture and greatly reducing room energy consumption.
2. **Full-Cycle Media Testing Becomes Rigid Demand:** Coolant impurities, deterioration, and corrosion are core causes of cold plate clogging, piping aging, and heat dissipation efficiency decay. At present, the industry has established a full-cycle system of factory composition testing, incoming sampling verification, and operational periodic monitoring, focusing on testing coolant conductivity, corrosiveness, cleanliness, and temperature resistance stability, fundamentally avoiding long-term hazards such as media contamination, piping corrosion, and flow channel clogging, and greatly extending liquid cooling system service life.
3. **Immersion-Specific Coolant Volume Ramp-Up:** Perfluorinated and hydrocarbon environmentally friendly immersion fluids have entered the pilot testing stage, with single-rack immersion solutions achieving PUE as low as 1.02–1.04; leading cloud vendors have launched small-scale pilots; the industry is simultaneously improving coolant circulation recovery and testing systems to reduce long-term O&M consumable costs.
**IV. Liquid Cooling Pump and Compressor Track: Normalized Reliability Testing; Building a Solid System Power Core**
Liquid cooling pumps are the core of system circulation power, and compressors support heat exchange and temperature control regulation. Over the past four months, core industry highlights have been domestic substitution of zero-leakage long-life pumps, iteration of high-temperature warm water-specific compressors, and upgraded reliability testing of power components. Stability testing of power components directly determines the continuous operation capability of liquid cooling systems.
1. **Accelerated Domestic Substitution of Shielded Pumps:** Nanfang Pump and Dayuan Pump's liquid cooling-specific shielded pumps are batch-supplied to leading CDU manufacturers, meeting 7×24 uninterrupted operation and zero-leakage requirements, adapting to 45℃ high-temperature warm water circulation conditions, and breaking long-term overseas brand monopoly; Feilong shares supplies Rubin platform-specific liquid cooling pumps, with Q2 orders growing significantly year-on-year.
2. **Compressor Technology Upgrades:** For high-temperature warm water liquid cooling and immersion liquid cooling scenarios, low-noise, wide-temperature-range specific compressors have completed iteration, with energy efficiency improved by 20%; integrated pump-valve units are gradually popularized, reducing on-site assembly processes and lowering piping leakage hazards.
3. **Rigorous Condition Testing Avoids Downtime Risks:** The industry implements high-temperature endurance testing, zero-leakage sealing testing, variable-frequency load adaptability testing, and noise & energy efficiency testing for liquid cooling pumps and compressors, simulating room high-temperature, high-load, uninterrupted operation extreme conditions, and investigating pump body vibration, insufficient pressure, start-stop failure, and compressor energy efficiency decay. As the only power source of the liquid cooling system, power component testing can effectively prevent whole-system downtime caused by single-component failure, ensuring continuous and stable operation of computing clusters.
4. **Downstream Demand Pull:** After single-rack power breaks through 200kW, the configuration quantity of liquid cooling pumps and compressors per room increases 3-fold, with energy storage liquid cooling and industrial high-power equipment temperature control simultaneously pulling pump product increments.
**V. Chiller and Terminal Temperature Control Track: Whole-Machine Energy Efficiency Testing Upgrade; Standardized Verification of Terminal Temperature Control Precision**
Traditional chillers are gradually transforming toward high-temperature dry cooling and modular cold stations, and integrated terminal temperature control of cabinets has become a standard for room construction. Industry energy-saving retrofit demand is being concentratedly released, with cold station whole-machine energy efficiency testing and terminal temperature control precision testing becoming core means to save energy, reduce PUE, and ensure heat dissipation effectiveness.
1. **45℃ Warm Water Architecture Reshapes Cold Station Market:** NVIDIA's Rubin platform adopts a 45℃ single-phase warm water solution, which can be paired with dry coolers to eliminate traditional chillers, greatly reducing room cooling energy consumption; in Q2 new intelligent computing center cold station solutions, dry cooler supporting proportion increased to over 60%, with traditional low-temperature chiller demand gradually shrinking.
2. **Modular Integrated Cold Station Landed:** Gaolan and Envicool launched outdoor integrated liquid cooling cold stations, integrating chillers, dry coolers, liquid storage tanks, and pump-valve units, with factory prefabrication completed for rapid on-site hoisting, shortening project construction cycles. Prefabricated integrated cold stations require whole-machine linkage debugging, energy efficiency testing, and temperature control error verification before factory delivery, ensuring on-site hoisting can achieve standard operation.
3. **Precise Testing of Terminal Cabinet Temperature Control:** Whole-cabinet integrated terminal temperature control units are popularizing independent testing mechanisms, verifying temperature adjustment precision, flow response speed, and overheat linkage protection functions cabinet by cabinet, precisely solving pain points such as single-cabinet local thermal runaway and temperature difference exceeding standards. Meanwhile, existing room retrofit projects mandatorily require full inspection of terminal temperature control equipment, eliminating post-retrofit heat dissipation non-compliance and abnormal energy consumption.
**VI. Monitoring and Control System Track: Testing + O&M Integration; Building a Full-Link Safety Protection System**
Intelligent monitoring and control systems are the core guarantee for safe operation of liquid cooling rooms and the core carrier for normalized component testing and standardized O&M. Over the past four months, the industry has comprehensively entered the digital, intelligent, and full-domain linkage stage, achieving closed-loop management of liquid cooling components from factory testing, commissioning verification, to full-lifecycle online monitoring.
1. **Standardized Full-Domain Sensor Monitoring:** Pressure sensors, flow sensors, temperature matrices, and leak detection ropes have become standard for liquid cooling systems, achieving real-time data collection across cold plates, piping, CDUs, and cold stations; negative-pressure leak monitoring systems are batch-commercialized, capable of early warning of tiny leaks and avoiding server downtime risks. The system can compare component operating parameters with factory testing standards in real time, precisely identifying component aging, performance decay, and abnormal deviation hazards.
2. **Integrated Intelligent Platform Iteration:** Leading temperature control manufacturers have launched liquid cooling-specific O&M management platforms, connected to computing cluster O&M systems, automatically adjusting coolant flow and cold station cooling power, achieving AI-linked energy saving, with room PUE precisely controllable to within 1.05. The platform is equipped with intelligent testing algorithms, capable of automatically completing component operating status self-inspection, anomaly traceability, and fault warning, realizing the transformation from passive repair to proactive predictive O&M.
3. **Policy Mandates Standardized Testing System:** In April, four departments issued computing energy-saving policies, explicitly requiring large intelligent computing centers to be equipped with complete liquid cooling safety monitoring, early warning, and periodic component testing systems; projects without standardized testing and normalized O&M mechanisms will not be approved. Policy is forcing the industry to establish full-lifecycle testing standards, making component testing shift from an enterprise optional action to an industry standard action.
**Dongguan Weiqiang Electromechanical Equipment Co., Ltd. is deeply engaged in the precision testing field of various liquid cooling product modules, focusing on providing customized, integrated, and digital intelligent testing total solutions for customers of various liquid cooling product modules, empowering the intelligent and localized upgrade of quality inspection in intelligent computing centers.**
**Summary of Core Overall Industry Development Trends**
**1. Policy + Technology Dual-Wheel Drive; Liquid Cooling Penetration Rate Rapidly Climbing**
In April, multiple national departments issued documents explicitly requiring 100% liquid cooling supporting for new large-scale AI intelligent computing centers; NVIDIA's Rubin all-liquid-cooling platform was officially announced in June and will be mass-produced in autumn, with air cooling completely exiting high-end computing scenarios. In Q1, all 40+ newly built intelligent computing centers nationwide adopted liquid cooling solutions, with liquid cooling server penetration rate rising from 12% in 2025 to 28%, and full-year industry scale expected to break through RMB 23 billion.
**2. Six Major Tracks Simultaneously Achieving Domestic Substitution; Full Industry Chain Autonomous Controllability Taking Shape**
From upstream cold plate materials and piping/valves to midstream CDUs, coolants, and pumps, to terminal cold stations and intelligent monitoring systems, domestic enterprises have achieved complete industry chain coverage, with leading manufacturers all entering NVIDIA and Intel global supply chains, and overseas brand market share continuously shrinking. Meanwhile, domestic testing standards and verification systems are simultaneously improving, achieving full-chain autonomous controllability of equipment, media, and testing.
**3. 45℃ High-Temperature Warm Water Single-Phase Liquid Cooling Becomes Mid-Term Mainstream Route**
Under whole-rack 200kW+ ultra-high power scenarios, high-temperature warm water cold plate liquid cooling balances maturity, cost, and energy-saving effectiveness, occupying short-term market dominance; two-phase immersion liquid cooling continues technical verification, with long-term layout for ultra-ten-thousand-card top-tier training clusters.
**4. Modularization, Prefabrication, Intelligence, and High Reliability Become Unified Development Directions**
Full industry chain products are transforming toward factory prefabrication and rapid on-site assembly, supported by intelligent monitoring O&M systems and standardized testing systems, greatly reducing room construction cycles, fault risks, and long-term O&M costs. Decoupled delivery models have become the preferred solution for cloud vendors and computing leasing enterprises.
**5. Testing System Becomes the Core Cornerstone of Liquid Cooling Industry Scale-Up**
As liquid cooling scenarios move from pilot to large-scale popularization, all-component, full-process, and full-cycle testing has become a core rigid demand for high-quality industry development. From factory performance verification and incoming sampling testing to real-time operational monitoring and periodic condition calibration, a complete testing system effectively solves industry pain points such as leakage, thermal runaway, energy efficiency decay, and equipment aging, and is the key support for ensuring safe and stable computing clusters, reducing project TCO, and meeting policy compliance requirements — becoming an indispensable core supporting track in the liquid cooling industry chain.
**6. Application Scenarios Continuously Broadening; New Energy Storage and Industrial Increments Beyond Computing Power**
Liquid cooling technology is simultaneously extending to large energy storage stations, industrial high-power frequency converters, vehicle-mounted computing, and military supercomputing fields, with five major sub-application scenarios jointly supporting a hundred-billion-level long-term market space.
**Outlook**
In H2 2026, with batch shipment of NVIDIA's Rubin platform, the start-up volume of ten-thousand-card AI training rooms will continue to rise, and the six major liquid cooling tracks will welcome a concentrated order delivery period. Capacity expansion of high-value core components such as cold plates, CDUs, and shielded pumps, along with the consumable attributes of environmentally friendly coolants and intelligent monitoring systems, will have long-term continuous volume space. Industry chain enterprises will continue to iterate technology around three major directions: high thermal conductivity materials, high-temperature working fluids, and full-domain intelligent safety monitoring, further improving the standardized testing system for liquid cooling components, building a solid industrial foundation of equipment safety, energy efficiency stability, and long-term reliability, continuously compressing import substitution space, optimizing green computing TCO for data centers, and supporting high-quality, low-carbon development of the domestic AI industry.**
