Beyond the Cold Plate: Ventiva’s Approach to Cooling the Components Liquid Cooling Leaves BehindBy Richard Rowe, Strategic Technical Programs – Customer Platforms & Ecosystem

Data centers face unprecedented challenges as AI workloads surge. More AI data centers are considering moving to liquid cooled solutions to relieve the CPUs and GPUs of the extreme heat they generate through these high intensity AI workloads. In this scenario CPUs and GPUs are on liquid loops, yet PCIe add-in cards, memory DIMMs, Network Interface Cards (NIC), Voltage Regulator Modules (VRM), Solid State Drive (SSD) Storage cards, and Boot Optimized Storage Solution (BOSS) cards – are being forgotten…

These ‘thermal orphans’ require cooling assistance to maintain throughput of the system and to prevent them from becoming the new bottle neck of the AI workload. Since some of these critical system components are tightly packed in, replaceable, upgradable, and hot swappable – hooking into the liquid loop apparatus is simply not viable.

Augmentative Cooling Solutions for a Hybrid Liquid World

The strongest near-term case for ionic cooling in liquid-cooled AI data centers is not full immersion. It is hybrid liquid cooling, especially when the ‘thermal orphans’ still depend on air for their cooling needs. These areas are tight, slim and difficult to air cool with existing fans that are now dedicated to cooling the liquid loop.

Liquid cooling solutions such as direct-to-chip single-phase cold plate, and direct-to-chip dielectric two-phase are where the real opportunity stands, since the back of rack components still need cooling that cannot be reached by these architectures.

Ventiva’s ionic cooling solutions deliver targeted airflow precisely where it’s needed. The modules can be mounted and powered directly on these slim system components, offering locally controlled power and cooling performance that can reduce power consumption of the server rack, while improving localized peripheral system performance and removing the AI workload bottle neck.

In addition to this cooling efficiency boost, the Ventiva modules are slim, compact, and modular, and deliver airflow linearly. This makes them ideal for placement across heatsinks on removable, upgradable, and hot-swappable cards and components where traditional fans cannot fit nor reach while maintaining high density in the rack.

Unlocking Performance in NICs and Boot SSDs

NICs are a compelling application for ionic cooling because their cooling requirements are explicit and often severe. Some NIC specs show typical power near 25 W for representative OCP 3.0 cards and give warning, critical, and emergency temperature thresholds of 105°C, 115°C, and 130°C for the IC. Often, server product manuals indicate airflow needs and have directionality called out explicitly.

These are exactly the kind of constraints that favor tightly targeted local airflow over relying on whatever bulk airflow remains after CPUs and GPUs move onto liquid loops. Ventiva solutions can be packaged locally as shown below.

Some BOSS-class boot SSD manuals on the market describe a PCIe card that supports dual 80 mm M.2 NVMe SSDs over a PCIe Gen3 x4 host link and exposes SSD SMART information through the CLI. That makes BOSS-class boot cards appealing for localized cooling because the thermally important spots are compact and predictable: the RAID/controller silicon, SSD controllers, and to a lesser extent the NAND packages.

Providing localized cooling directly on these components will not only enable higher transfer speeds but will also reduce component IC stress and ultimately extend the life of the card itself. Below is an example of how Ventiva can integrate its solutions directly on a BOSS card.

Cool Every Corner: Eliminating Thermal Orphans

Ventiva’s distinction for the AI data center is different. Our solutions can contribute thermally to a broader system-level thermal architecture, delivering targeted airflow precisely where it’s needed, so every component executes at the optimal temperature for sustained peak performance.

Tighter spaces, thinner systems. With airflow in and out through the sides, our ionic cooling modules mount horizontally or vertically, providing augmentative cooling for where fans don’t fit. Voltage regulators, Network Interface Cards, BOSS modules, DIMMs – these datacenter thermal orphans finally get the cooling they need.

Curious about what’s possible? Contact Us to arrange a visit to our Demo Suite at Computex next week to see what’s possible for your BOSS and NIC applications.