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Castrol launches new direct-to-chip cooling fluid

British industrial lubricant company Castrol has launched a new direct-to-chip cooling fluid designed to address the high thermal demands of AI and high-performance computing data centers.
Castrol ON Direct Liquid Cooling PG 25 is a propylene glycol-based cooling fluid designed explicitly for direct-to-chip cooling applications in data centers.
Direct-to-chip cooling systems deliver liquid coolant directly to heat generating components, enabling faster heat transfer and reducing the reliance on energy intensive air conditioning systems.
Castrol is at the forefront of the liquid cooling sector. Last year, the company partnered with server IT equipment manufacturer Hypertec to collaborate on immersion cooling technology.
Castrol develops and tests its cooling technology at its headquarters in Pangbourne, UK. In 2022, the company committed £50 million ($64.55m) to the headquarters to develop new immersion fluids and enable customers and partners to test liquid cooling techniques adapted to new server equipment.

KoolLogix partners with Singapore's A*Star for $8m cooling solutions lab

Thermal management firm KoolLogix has partnered with A*Star (The Agency for Science, Technology, and Research) to build an $8 million lab to develop AI and GPU-optimized cooling solutions.
A*Star is a public sector research and development agency based in Singapore.
The lab will focus on developing and test-bedding energy-efficient cooling heat removal technologies for future AI and GPU data centers.
KoolLogix has also launched its HRM50 series; a rear door heat exchanger, capable of removing 50kW of heat per rack.
The company said its pump-free and compressor-free design achieved a coefficient of performance of 150, with savings of up to 50 percent compared to traditional cooling technologies.
KoolLogix has designed and installed cooling solutions for clients including OCBC Bank and the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC Singapore). Founded in 2018 and with headquarters in Singapore, the company has deployed its solutions to several colocation and enterprise data centers.

Microsoft has acquired twice as many Nvidia Hopper GPUs as other tech companies.
By comparison, Meta bought an estimated 224,000 Hopper chips, with ByteDance and Tencent ordering approximately 230,000 GPUs each, and xAI/Tesla purchasing approximately 200,000.
Of the big tech companies analyzed by Omdia, Amazon, and Google came bottom of the table, purchasing 196,000 and 169,000 Hopper chips, respectively.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta have also all developed their own AI chips.
Despite Nvidia's Hopper successor Blackwell, expected in early 2025, demand for the Hopper GPUs remains strong.
Blackwell has also had an unfortunate start to life, experiencing an unexpected production error that forced Nvidia to announce it would be pushing deliveries back.

On Jan. 6 at 6:30 p.m. PT, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang — with his trademark leather jacket and an unwavering vision — will step onto the CES 2025 stage.
Today, NVIDIA is a driving force behind breakthroughs in AI and accelerated computing, technologies transforming industries ranging from healthcare, to automotive and entertainment.
NVIDIA’s accelerated computing and AI platforms power hundreds of millions of computers, available from major cloud providers and server manufacturers.
GPUs redefined gaming as an art form, and NVIDIA’s AI tools empower labs, factory floors and Hollywood sets. From self-driving cars to automated industrial processes, these tools are foundational to the next generation of technological breakthroughs.
From Jan. 7-10, NVIDIA will host press, analysts, customers and partners at the Fontainebleau Resort Las Vegas.

The European Commission (EC) has approved Nvidia's proposed acquisition of Run:ai.
The EC gave the green light for the acquisition on December 20, noting that it had "concluded that the transaction would raise no competition concerns in the European Economic Area.“
Nvidia's interest in acquiring Run:ai first emerged in March of this year and was confirmed in April. Early reports suggested the deal could be valued at as much as $1 billion.
Run:ai is an Israeli start-up that helps to manage and optimize distributed AI deployments via its open platform built on Kubernetes.

The Biden Administration is drafting a plan to enable the construction of data centers and electrical power plants on federally owned land.
According to the E&E report, the government is trying to write up a plan before Biden's term ends on January 20. That plan could involve relaxing environmental restrictions on some parcels of federal land, and enabling the development and construction of dedicated power plants initially using natural gas.
Should such a plan go through, it would enable big tech companies to develop their own power plants to feed power directly to their data centers.
Earlier this week, President-Elect Trump announced that Japanese telecommunications and IT operator SoftBank would invest $100n in the US. Trump said this would “ensure that artificial intelligence (AI), emerging technologies, and other industries of tomorrow are built created, and grown right here in the USA.”
Trump has also claimed that, once he takes office, companies that invest more than $1 billion in the US would “receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals.”

Microsoft is expected to build four of the seven data centers, with the city providing the tech giant with a 50 percent property tax abatement on the condition it meets specific criteria.
Microsoft must enter a minimum 15-year lease on two of the buildings by next year and a minimum 15-year lease on the other two buildings by the end of 2026. In addition, the company must occupy a minimum of half a million square feet by the end of 2026 and increase the property’s combined taxable value by at least $200 million by 2027.
The tax abatement also applies to QTS’ DC5 and DC6 facilities at 6300 Longhorn Drive. The company re-filed to build DC5 last year after originally filing for the $180 million project back in 2022. The company filed to build DC6 at the same location earlier this year.
The tax abatement also applies to QTS’ DC5 and DC6 facilities at 6300 Longhorn Drive. The company re-filed to build DC5 last year after originally filing for the $180 million project back in 2022. The company filed to build DC6 at the same location earlier this year.