As AI workloads push rack densities beyond 100 kW, Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) is becoming an increasingly important part of the data center cooling strategy. But liquid cooling doesn’t eliminate the need for effective airflow management.
In this new white paper, Subzero Engineering Senior CFD Engineer Gordon Johnson explores why containment remains a critical foundation for efficient, reliable hybrid cooling—and how operators can prepare their facilities for the next generation of high-density compute.
AI Is Changing the Data Center Cooling Equation
Modern CPUs, GPUs, and AI accelerators are generating thermal loads that increasingly exceed the practical limits of traditional air cooling. As rack densities move beyond the 25–35 kW range and approach or exceed 100 kW, liquid cooling provides a scalable way to remove heat directly from high-power components.
But the transition isn’t simply air cooling vs. liquid cooling.
For many facilities, the future is hybrid cooling, which combines both air and liquid cooling to manage the heat generated by low-density and high-density compute loads.
That makes the management of hot and cold air more important, not less.
Liquid Cooling Doesn’t Eliminate Airflow.
It Changes How You Need to Manage It.
Direct-to-Chip cooling removes heat at the source, but supporting equipment continues to release heat into the surrounding environment. Without containment, bypass airflow, recirculation and unstable inlet temperatures can undermine the performance of an otherwise advanced cooling strategy.
Containment provides the critical bridge between today’s air-cooled infrastructure and tomorrow’s high-density liquid-cooled environments.
Inside the White Paper
Gordon examines the technologies, challenges and infrastructure decisions shaping next-generation data center cooling, including:
- What’s driving liquid cooling adoption as AI and HPC push power densities higher
- How hybrid cooling works and why air and liquid cooling increasingly operate together
- Direct-to-Chip vs. immersion cooling and how the DLC market may evolve
- Why containment remains non-negotiable in modern thermal management
- How containment improves thermal reliability and cooling efficiency
- How AisleFrame supports AI and HPC environments with scalable, ground-supported infrastructure ready for air and liquid cooling
The Foundation for a Hybrid Cooling Future
Containment physically separates supply and exhaust air streams, helping maximize the effectiveness of both air- and liquid-cooling infrastructure.
For existing facilities, it can optimize today’s air-cooled environment while creating a more scalable path toward future DLC deployment. For new AI and HPC facilities, containment provides a foundational thermal strategy that supports higher densities, predictable inlet temperatures and more efficient cooling performance.
Subzero’s AisleFrame System takes that strategy further by integrating containment, DTC cooling piping, racks, data and power cabling within a modular, ground-supported structural platform designed to scale as infrastructure requirements evolve.