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Jane Neil Of Subzero Engineering On How We Can Increase Girls’ Participation in Engineering and Robotics

Normalize Female Engineers: Using social media to showcase women in engineering can normalize the presence of women in these roles and make them more relatable to young girls.

An Interview with Jane Neil by Vanessa Ogle
Originally featured on Medium, this article delves into the gender disparity in STEM and outlines effective ways to boost girls’ engagement in engineering and robotics. Read the full article here: https://www.subzeroeng.com/how-we-can-increase-girls-participation-in-engineering-and-robotics/

Despite the growing importance of engineering and robotics in shaping our future, women remain significantly underrepresented in these fields. This series aims to explore and address the barriers that discourage girls from pursuing careers in engineering and robotics. We are talking to educators, industry leaders, pioneering women engineers, and robotics experts who have made significant contributions to their fields to discuss the strategies they believe can inspire and increase the participation of young girls in engineering and robotics. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jane Neil, Subzero Engineering.

She is a positive self motivated individual with an outgoing personality who offers an analytical view to life and activities. With thirty years experience working in complex and constantly changing environments I have gained well developed organisational, networking, communication and negotiation skills and ability to prioritise and manage extensive workloads.

Through the unique experience of life and rigour within the Royal Navy, high pressure, time bound commitments on self and team was commonplace, this provided extensive travel and extended experience of numerous cultures.

Strong technical background with practice in Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing and Supply Chain gained in heavy engineering within construction, pump equipment and automotive industry. Working knowledge of numerous quality systems and standards both from a compliance and an implementation perspective.

Her recent Supply Chain experiences have developed the ability to understand explicit and implicit customer needs while building internal and external working relationships across global regions. This has also developed Project Management competence, involving multiple stakeholders with varying needs, using influencing skills in a variety of customer and supplier situations, delivering results through people. All aspects of people management from recruitment to performance, an ability to identify support and development needs within teams.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I’ve always been drawn to engineering, It’s very much an internal feeling. But it was out of necessity as my parents separated when I was very young, so if anything broke in the house, I was the one who wanted to fix it so my mum wouldn’t worry. I would carry out many simple manual tasks, such as plastering walls or laying bathroom tiles. I remember once the washing machine broke, and I gave my mum an electric shock in my attempts to fix it!

Back then, around 35 years ago, it was rare to find females in engineering roles. Luckily for me, the British Royal Navy changed that, and for the first time in history women could go to sea. That also meant that females could be engineers. Before then, the stereotypical WREN was handbag and court shoes, all very British.

I’ve been around the world, and I’ve done a lot. Since the Royal Navy I’ve been in many different manufacturing and engineering environments, from marine engineering, automotive, and pump manufacturing. The oil, gas and nuclear industries were prominent in my earlier career path and that’s before I went into more high-tech electronics.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

When I first started, the uniform issued to me was a mix of both male and female designs, because I was only the seventh woman to go to sea as an engineer. We were pioneers, not entirely sure what to expect. My first military assignment was during the Bosnia War, where I was awarded a NATO medal for peacekeeping. That was in my first three months at sea!

What inspired you to pursue a career in engineering or robotics, and how can we replicate that inspiration for young girls?

The UK Government presented the opportunity to me, but for future generations, targeted marketing and social media can be powerful tools. How can you get a female’s attention when you are competing with fashion and diet pills on Instagram, etc? Highlighting the potential for high salaries in electronics and engineering could be appealing.

We need to educate young people in digestible chunks while they’re still in that sweet spot of discovery and understanding, to show them what the future could look like! There are so many different elements to engineering and, for many, it can be quite overwhelming. Social media can play a big role in making these concepts accessible and normalizing the idea of women in engineering.

It’s also interviews such as these, where you can see that I have a normal life, kids and family, my work-life balance in check, I have a management role, and this is the salary bracket. Being here, proving to people that I’m doing the job, demonstrates to younger females that women are in management and engineering roles now, that we are supportive of those young girls coming in.

The path forward is now carved out, though it’s still narrow. When I was younger, the route wasn’t smooth — you had to climb rocks, overcome obstacles, and break through barriers. But today, that path exists.

I encourage women to walk that path, knowing there are others ready to support them along the way. As managers in engineering environments, it’s our responsibility to recognize and nurture the talent in the young.

There is a duty of care, a real sense of responsibility to guide the talent in the young females and give them stretch assignments. I’m always challenging the females in the work environment to be uncomfortable. Because being uncomfortable is good. It may not feel that way, but you must move your thinking because you only ever grow when you’re out of your comfort zone. Uncomfortableness equals growth and you will have no idea what you can achieve if you don’t learn to see it positively!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My sense of responsibility stems from the fact that I didn’t really have any work mentors or significant figures guiding me through my career. While I never felt recognized for my struggles, it taught me the importance of recognizing and nurturing talent in others. People nowadays are so concerned with themselves that they don’t have the time, space, or energy to recognize other’s talents, but that doesn’t mean that you’re less talented.

The adversity that I went through helped make me the person and the leader that I am today. It possibly makes me fiercer and more courageous. My career path may not have been a smooth ride, but that’s not real life, is it?

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

A coach called David Allen, and his program called Getting Things Done (GTD) made a significant impact on me. I got hold of an audio file of a seminar that he did probably 15 years ago, and I just loved it. It’s about time management & high performance. I still listen to the audio file today if I get bogged down or too busy. I’ll just play one of them and it lifts me up to where my thinking needs to be. It taught me how to mind map and how not to worry about the things I wasn’t doing so I had the energy to focus on the highest value projects. And it taught me how to extract those blockages from my brain, whether via high tech or low tech so that it wasn’t jamming my creativity.

As females we often worry about what we’re not doing, and don’t celebrate what we are doing well. Changing that mindset has made me a better mother, wife, employee, manager, everything. One of the most valuable pieces of advice I ever received came from the GTDs. I use it with my team: when we are naturally good at something, we often take that magic and put it in a zero-value bucket because we think it’s natural and therefore not special. We need to take our natural talents back out of the zero-value bucket as it’s our super power!

Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?

My favorite life lesson quote is from a Jack Canfield book. It’s ‘no blaming, no complaining, no excuses’. It leaves you nowhere to go, so you’re forced to own it. I was always taught by my mother to look in before you look out. We live in a world today where we’re so easily distracted with information bombarding us from all angles, that we’re constantly looking to the next answer and not concentrating on what we have in front of us. I believe the answers are always inside us. We just need to find the peace and quiet inside and take a minute to listen.

I use this life lesson quote in my day-to-day work and ask my team to do the same. Once you take the blame or complain out of the equation it becomes easier to look at the challenge and deal with it head on.

According to this report, only about 16% of engineering positions in the US are held by women. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from Engineering and Robotics?

As females, we can sometimes gravitate to areas and environments where there are more women around, sub-consciously avoiding those that are more male-centric. Women might have an idea of what a normal day looks like if they work in, for example, marketing, which is perhaps a more balanced role, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet on the engineering front. Again, social media can help in demystifying roles, and showing what a normal day in an engineering role is like. In addition, the availability of more equal salaries in this industry helps women to know that they are valued more equally.

This might be intuitive to you but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should enter the Engineering and Robotics fields?

Women are natural problem solvers. We look at things in a different perspective from men. Our brains are wired differently, so we can look at a challenge from all the different angles, which in turn offers more innovation. It’s a beautiful thing for a female to bring to engineering environments and there is huge satisfaction that comes from problem-solving, improving things, and innovating. Your self-esteem, your happiness, your take on life, the confidence that grows; you don’t have to think or feel like a man to bring that talent into the workplace. Diversity leads to greater innovation, and having more women in engineering will only accelerate progress.

Can you please share “5 Things We Need To Increase Girls’ Participation in Engineering and Robotics?”

1. Role Models in Schools: While STEM stuff is prominent in schools right now, it’s doesn’t quite translate into jobs available for females in engineering. Middle school is a critical time for kids to discover potential career paths. Having female engineers speak at schools and share their experiences can help demystify the field and inspire young girls.

2. Clear Educational Pathways: Highlighting courses available in college and how they translate into a career for women, would be a big improvement. If I’d had that knowledge at that age, my path would have been a much easier one to take.

3. Educate in Bite-sized Chunks: Educating young people to show them what their potential can look like. If we introduce young girls to the many different elements of engineering and the many different industries that engineering is a part of, rather than just a high overview, would really help the next generation to understand the innovation and change aspect. All too many times, people just don’t understand what we do, so to break down the many various elements of it in bite-size chunks of learning would help.

4. Normalize Female Engineers: Using social media to showcase women in engineering can normalize the presence of women in these roles and make them more relatable to young girls.

5. Promote Salary Parity: Demonstrating to young people that they can earn the same salaries as their equal male counterparts is powerful. Women deserve equal parity and pay, and that was part of the attraction for me when I was younger. I don’t think we’re fully there yet, but we are moving in the right direction.

In your opinion, what are the most effective ways to introduce girls to engineering and robotics at an early age?

It would be helpful if school visits with groups of females who had shown an interest in engineering could come into the company, how often do you see the inside of an organization at that age? Introducing young people to what the manufacturing environment looks like, how it feels to be in the building and meeting the people that work there would be very effective. If local businesses could be attached to school programs, and have classes come and physically walk around the business — it could be enough to spark a light.

Educational programs at the school level, hands-on learning experiences and opportunities, and fostering inclusive and supportive environments would encourage young women into the industry. A lot of impressionable young women worry that the industry is too male dominated and that can feel quite intimidating. Seeing real women who actually work in the industry and talking with them about day-to-day life would put a lot of young women at ease.

30% of office and 25% of production are female, we are a super supportive bunch! We want the absolute best for each other, it’s a magical environment. We would love to show our next female generation just how supportive we can be.

How do you think the portrayal of women in STEM fields by media and educational materials impacts girls’ interest in engineering and robotics?

Social media can impact girls’ interests, but I don’t think there is enough positive content to be found on the platforms, or that it’s real enough. It’s still very much at a high overview perspective, and it needs to be broken down into much more real-life examples for young people to be able to digest and absorb. Our marketing video has many women in production, and it does a great job in showing the reality of the industry. We need more displays of females in their normal place of work.

What advice would you give to girls who are interested in engineering and robotics but are hesitant to take the first step?

The path has been carved now, and, as females, we should be stepping onto it. The more that we do, the wider the path will become and the smoother the journey. We are always building our way for the future of females, so we’re not only responsible for ourselves, but we’re also responsible for whoever is coming next. We don’t have to be masculine anymore. We can make a real difference in engineering, and that is very, very satisfying. It’s a role where you can look back and say, I made a change. That could be a change in technology or an office environment for other females. Feminism has evolved; it is about heart, soul and humility. Bringing your diversity to an engineering environment where you are involved in the change for the future is a nourishing and rewarding place to be.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

“Women in Clean Tech” is the movement I’d inspire!

Women Engineering a Sustainable Future. It combines two crucial elements: increasing diversity in engineering and addressing environmental challenges. This movement would promote mentorship programs, collaborative eco-tech projects, and sustainability-focused innovations.

By encouraging more women to enter engineering fields, we can tap into a wealth of undiscovered potential. This diversity brings fresh ideas and approaches to problem-solving, which is crucial when tackling complex issues like climate change and resource scarcity. Utilizing individual talents to strengthen a group, recognizing and leveraging the unique skills and perspectives that each member brings to the table.

I recently implemented a recyclables project, led by a female on my team is a small example of this potential. Imagine this amplified globally — women engineers spearheading a more sustainable world. By merging gender diversity with environmental action, we can create positive change that benefits everyone and creates a powerful synergy.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is a mom, entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion allowed her to be one of the most acclaimed Latina CEO’s in the last 30 years. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Broadcom to bring innovative solutions to travelers and hotels around the world. Vanessa is the lead inventor on 120+ U.S. Patents. Accolades include: FAST 100, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies, Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year among others. Vanessa now spends her time sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles, speaking engagements and music. In her spare time she writes and plays music in the Amazon best selling new band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, trains dogs, and cheers on her children.

Data Center

Educational Article

How AI is Revolutionizing the Data Center Industry

Article by Gordon Johnson, Subzero Senior CFD Manager

The data center industry is, and will continue to be, in high demand for storage and process capabilities while at the same time facing increasing pressure to be more efficient, more secure and more scalable. This is where we see AI, the technology rapidly reshaping how we use our data, assisting us in our quest to be smarter, yet greener than ever.

While some say (perhaps correctly) that right now in 2024, AI is not as widespread as many would have us believe – AI is estimated to be in only 5% of data centers – the reality is that 20% of data centers are expected to have some kind of AI as early as 2026. The AI market is projected to reach US $407bn by 2027.

There is also much speculation on how to scale AI applications, so we’re seeing some data centers increasing their infrastructure to support future AI applications. In addition, some completed, or near-completed, designs are being revisited to support projected AI demand.

Operational Efficiency

AI’s predictive capabilities extend beyond maintenance to capacity planning, helping data centers anticipate and prepare for future demands, enabling efficient planning and scaling of operations to meet growing demand.

By providing insights into usage trends and capacity needs, AI assists in infrastructure management, planning upgrades and expansions, and ensuring data centers remain ahead of the curve.

AI helps improve Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) by analyzing patterns and making real-time adjustments to power usage. This leads to more sustainable operations and reduces operational costs. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software capitalizes on this analysis, enabling the validation of a design or restructure to ensure you don’t have to deal with a worst-case scenario.

Energy Management

AI applications are escalating power consumption at the time we need to become greener and more sustainable. AI has the potential to be used to assist in operating data centers in a smarter and more energy-conscious way and, if designed and deployed correctly, could help us in our goal of a net zero data center.

AI-powered systems can dynamically adjust temperatures and airflow based on real-time data, optimizing cooling processes and significantly reducing energy consumption. Facilities that are specifically designed to run AI applications will be cooled predominantly with liquid cooling going forward. This trend will also impact COLOs since they’ll need to offer HPC and AI capabilities to stay competitive.

Data center designers and managers are doing their best to separate high and regular-density equipment within the whitespace to drive future efficiency. Rack densities, chips, servers, power consumption and heat levels are expected to increase with the demand that AI requirements place on them.

Cooling

It’s safe to say that because of AI, the future of IT cooling and thermal management is likely to be a hybrid solution comprising both air and liquid cooling technologies.

While we can expect rack densities to continue to increase, not everyone plans to deploy AI and ML (Machine Learning). Data center workloads show that air will still be useful for cooling ITE, it’s typically going to be HPC servers where it will continue to get more difficult if not impossible to cool with air alone. It’s also important to emphasize that not all ITE will be at the high end of the heat scale in the foreseeable future, meaning we’ll still be cooling the majority of ITE with air. Moving forward, we’ll need to find the balance in terms of efficiency, cost, and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) when it comes to cooling options. Hybrid Cooling Infrastructure (air and liquid) is what we’ll be seeing more and more of moving forward.

The form of liquid cooling that is widely used is Direct-to-Chip (DTC)/Cold Plate liquid cooling. This technology uses a cooling fluid circulated through server CPUs and GPUs to absorb and dissipate heat. It is an effective way to cool AI ITE. DTC liquid cooling improves energy efficiency compared to traditional air cooling when deployed with high-density racks and can also reduce power utilization and overall water usage.

One important thing to consider is that DTC cooling only removes up to 70-75% of the heat generated by the ITE rack, leaving 25-30% that still needs to be removed by traditional air-cooling systems. Right now, the industry appears to be adopting DTC quicker than other forms of liquid cooling. This may or may not change, but once again this shows that air-cooling in our data centers is still needed and is not going away. We can expect to see its infrastructure continue to grow and be around for years to come.

Conclusion

AI is profoundly impacting the data center industry in several ways, modifying how data centers are designed, managed and operated. AI brings unprecedented levels of efficiency, security and scalability and, by using this technology, data centers can meet today’s growing demands while reducing costs and environmental impact. As AI technology continues to advance, its transformative effects on data centers will herald a new era of smart, sustainable, and resilient digital infrastructure.

AI is not just a tool for incremental improvements; it addresses the challenges faced by the data industry to reduce its carbon footprint, improve sustainability and bring us closer to net zero. As data volumes continue to climb, the integration of AI will become even more critical for the data center industry.

Company

Educational Article

Harnessing the Power of Operational Scalability

Article by Shane Kilfoil, Subzero Engineering President

In today’s fast-paced business environment, scalability is not just a buzzword; it’s a necessity. Entrepreneurs often get trapped in the daily grind of running their businesses, neglecting to put in place the systems, procedures, and people needed for sustainable growth. Without this foundation, companies hit bottlenecks, suffer inefficiencies, and face the risk of stalling or failing.

To be able to adapt and expand operations as your business grows is not just about adding employees or customers. Sure, that’s the main target, but what about the processes, systems or infrastructure to successfully and sustainably manage your customer needs?

Operational scalability cuts across all aspects of the business. It’s too easy to just focus on the production line if you’re a manufacturer. Sales and financial operations, through to supply chain operations also need to be considered and scaled up to meet the customer’s needs in a timely fashion. It’s vital to ensure that as the business evolves and grows, it doesn’t compromise on quality or efficiency across any aspect of the operation.

The investment of time and energy resources

The term operational scalability is personal to your business, the growth and evolution of it and where you see yourself being in X number of years.

For profitable growth, investing time and effort into your processes, your systems and the people that drive those processes are vitally important. If you haven’t set the groundwork, then when growth opportunities come along you might end up finding that the company is scrambling. This is not sustainable. I often use the analogy of comparing ourselves to a restaurant. You know how many meals you can make and on occasion you have a rush. You may be able to hire one or two extra people temporarily because you know that during this occasional rush period, you can meet the excess demand. That’s great for the short term, but as a company in a high-growth environment, you would need to be able to support that rush every day, every week, every month. And that becomes very hard to do. Most people can do a heavy lift for perhaps a week but then employees start getting tired. People start getting sick.

The organization needs to be set up to cater for those demand spikes, and then scale up and move to where the demand is coming from. A good foundation allows you to either quickly scale or absorb spikes without too much issue and sustainably maintain that through the course of your business.

Scaling up

We recently moved Simplex from a California-based manufacturing operation to our new Salt Lake City facility. It wasn’t that the California operation was operating poorly, in fact, they were a pretty efficient operation. But as we looked at its ability to scale, we realized we had some physical constraints in that the building was not large enough or set up as we needed. We also recognized that many of the commodities used are very similar between Simplex and Subzero, so we decided to move both businesses under a single 155,000 square foot facility giving the Simplex operation, which beforehand was restricted to a 40,000 square feet facility, room to grow.

Relocating allowed us to bring both businesses under a single roof. It gave us the option to scale the business significantly and allowed our engineering teams to manage a single supply chain. As an organization, we had to bring one business culture into another and help people adjust not just to the commercial side in terms of how they go to market with their customers, but also to what the culture was in Salt Lake City. Ultimately it was the right decision because it gave us the ability to scale our business and workforce during times of high demand. As an added advantage, there’s also been a cross-pollination of knowledge sharing and we now have a more cross-trained workforce. Should we ever get hit by another pandemic, this will allow us to continue our manufacturing capability without being heavily impacted.

Scalability or sustainability

Interpreting scalability can be difficult for many organizations. Maybe some businesses have got the term ‘operational scalability’ wrong because they haven’t been quite as sustainable in their business growth. For some, operational stability is about having a robust network so if there’s a supply shortage they can pull from another solution. For others, it’s more about how I grow. For me, operational sustainability is sustained, consistent growth. If I can scale it, can I maintain the same level of service and quality that my customer expects during that growth cycle? If I can’t, I’m probably not operationally robust enough. It’s a constant learning curve to consistently improve, and as you improve, you need to keep yourself nimble enough to meet demand or even a change in direction if there is demand for a new product. The organization needs to be set up both on the front end and the back end to support changes in demand capacity or changes in the customer’s direction.

Change management

It’s not just about the customer. It’s also about your employees. How do we keep the team motivated during these periods of scalability?

Trying to rally everyone around a common goal seems simple, but not everyone listens and learns the same way. Communication is key because once people understand, they’re often able to take it on board and help drive towards it. Effective communication and clear goal setting in driving operational scalability is essential for company-wide change. Understanding the purpose of tasks is essential for motivation and performance, and the successful implementation of new systems and processes relies heavily on the acceptance and adaptation of team members. Not everyone is comfortable with growth and change, however, self-managed, self-motivated and adaptable leaders who can handle change can be empowered with the responsibility to contribute to the organization’s growth.

Industry shifts

Covid accelerated the industry’s growth, emphasizing the importance of supply chain management and the ability to respond to changing demands quickly. At Subzero, we shifted towards greater flexibility in serving customers and the potential for addressing more esoteric requests due to increased capacity.

Operational sustainability and scalability are vital for growth and profits, and investing time, effort, and resources into processes, systems, and people is essential. But all the time you’re investing in these, a close eye needs to be kept on technology changes and clients’ demands. We’re currently looking at the role of AI in the data center industry and the challenges of integrating AI into systems while maintaining our sustainability goals. We need to plan for future infrastructure to support AI and other emerging technologies.

Our industry’s shift towards liquid cooling highlights challenges in terms of cost and scalability. I predict a hybrid solution will emerge, with traditional cooling methods used alongside liquid cooling, and we need to be sure that Subzero’s products will be scalable and adaptable to future requirements. Our ongoing journey towards becoming a total solutions provider focuses on sustainability and meeting customer needs, as well as the impact of rising interest rates on customers’ spending capabilities.

Company

Team

International Women’s Day 2024

In celebration of International Women’s Day 2024, we applaud some of the women within Senneca and Subzero Engineering who buck the trend of bias, stereotypes and discrimination.

Across the tech or manufacturing industry, many women hold the same roles as men but are never valued equally. The campaign theme for International Women’s Day 2024 is Inspire Inclusion. Today, we take action to drive gender parity by extolling our female engineers and operational personnel who create so much value across Senneca Holdings.

With that being said, let us meet some of the inspirational women on our team, and learn a little more about them and their role – in their own words.

Alexa McFarlane
Buyer in the Supply Chain for Subzero Engineering

This is the first organization I’ve been with where I don’t feel that being a woman is a conscious issue.

This is the first organization I’ve been with where I don’t feel that being a woman is a conscious issue. It has its moments, but I think the tech industry, in general, feels more data and performance-driven. There’s trust in the data and the systems that we use. And when our numbers are good, it doesn’t matter who you are.

I’m consistently impressed by how many women we have on the manufacturing floor in our offices. I feel like we add an element of humanity where we don’t judge each other if we’ve had a bad day and support each other in those rough moments. And when you have a great day, it’s fantastic to have people to celebrate with. We recognize that everybody makes mistakes. It’s nice not constantly feeling on the spot or that you can’t afford to have one of those days. Just having that breathing space allows all of us here to grow and be ourselves, personally and professionally. We’ve all achieved things most of us wouldn’t have expected by being allowed that breathing room.

What advice would I give to someone wanting to come into manufacturing? First off, don’t be scared. Don’t be afraid to get dirty. But the biggest thing is learn to toot your own horn. It’s not something that comes particularly naturally. You discover very quickly that there often isn’t anybody to do it for you. Bragging about yourself is okay.

Cathy Knutson
Office Manager & Site Services Install Team Coordinator

Women’s backgrounds, their life experiences and the multifaceted jobs they have often mean they need to be very detail-oriented. I didn’t think I was a good project manager until I told my manager that in the space of two weeks, I had moved my kids into a new apartment, got everybody enrolled in school, and got myself a new job, he asked me how I got all of that done in two weeks and why I wasn’t a project manager? I had never thought of that. It’s just something that we do, and we don’t apply it to the business sector, which we should do.

I feel my role needs to be very positive. It’s about encouraging people to know they already have the solution and know what to do. You have to go out of your comfort zone and you’re going to have to problem-solve in areas that you didn’t think was your job. I’m able to see where teams can benefit from working together or see what’s going on and say, I’ve been able to do this in the past, how can I help you with that? Invariably there’s always something to do to help, a natural skill for women because of the different viewpoints we see things from.

Seeing men and women on the production floor, it’s good to see them standing next to each other, working and problem-solving together. To me, that’s really exciting.

Chelsea Traver
Vice President of Finance at Senneca Holdings

One of the key ways to empower is to give people the ability to make decisions.

I’ve been in manufacturing for a while, but it’s a very male-dominated profession. However, I like being able to hold my own, being viewed as a trusted advisor, influencing things or being sought out for how to improve processes.

The biggest strength I bring to my role is my ability to build partnerships with any area of the business, whether it be sales, marketing, operations or direct labor. I don’t speak financially even though I’m in finance. I look to find common ground in which to move forward.

As you grow as a leader, you become less task-based and more development-based. It doesn’t matter whether you are a male or female of any race if they have the drive to grow, as a leader, you have the responsibility to help them get there. As a leader, your job is to empower people and give them the opportunities to step out and take a leap, while being there to catch them if they fall or praise them if they do well.

One of the key ways to empower is to give people the ability to make decisions. Diversity leads to better innovation because you get different ideas. Not everybody has the same upbringing. It’s where they came from in life and what they bring to the conversation. Sometimes if you only surround yourself with like-minded people, you can become set in the ways that you do things.

Gloria Huegel
Vice President of Human Resources at Senneca and Subzero Engineering

Organizations need to reinforce women in the workplace and recognize those who have excelled in technology, overcoming that traditional glass ceiling or barriers to entry.

I see my role in human resources as identifying and supporting women and people from underrepresented groups. We miss out as an organization when we don’t identify and leverage that talent, it’s extremely important for our success and our differentiation in the market to have those multiple voices.

Mentorships helped me get through different levels and different industries, and I found it very important to build those relationships and trust early on in my career. Now that I have acceded to a leadership level, I see it as my role to look out for other females who may not have had the same opportunities that I did.

Organizations need to reinforce women in the workplace and recognize those who have excelled in technology, overcoming that traditional glass ceiling or barriers to entry. Women who may have had to work a little harder to get into that space is a commendable achievement. And we need to recognize that.

With women primarily being the caretakers not only of children, but of aging parents, neighbors, and patrons within the church, they need lots of different communication styles. I think women adapt to their audience very well and wear multiple hats. They change their style according to what the situation demands.

At both Senneca and Subzero, we prioritize an environment of respect for all perspectives. We miss out if we censor or shut down different voices and different opinions. Diversity keeps us all growing and progressing, and that will differentiate us for success.

Jane Neil
Supply Chain Manager at Subzero Engineering

Women in management positions and leadership positions speak volumes to the younger females.

I have an extensive background in tech, starting as an electrical engineer in the British Royal Navy. I’ve also worked in oil and gas, electronics and construction. In my younger days, I would feel that you had to give 150% to stand still, but back then, the opportunities weren’t as available as they are now.

I have seen a lot of changes over the years and have encountered some challenges. But I think that if you turn back time, I wouldn’t want to take away any of those challenges. I think they’ve made me the character that I’m to be.

A lot of women don’t believe they’ll have the same opportunities as men. But I think having women’s voices on social media helps. I’ve also worked in places where we have a women in technology mentorship program where the senior leaders that are females are paired up with the younger females that want to advance and coach them. Women in those management positions and leadership positions speak volumes to the younger females.

I feel very determined to support the women here. I make extra effort to make sure they know that I’m around and that I’m here to support them, spending time with them one-on-one and letting them trust that there’s a path there for them. Sometimes we just need to have someone believe in us.

Women bring diversity and different approaches. Sometimes females can bring a softness to harder environments. Whenever there’s diversity, there’s innovation and growth. Everyone has their unique journeys in life and their unique backgrounds and cultures, which makes them look at things from a bunch of different angles. It’s proven that the more diversity in companies, the better their innovation. Everyone brings something different.

Liz Carranza
Production Planner at Subzero Engineering

The more people you have with different backgrounds and the different approaches that you have, the more well-rounded you become.

Communication as a production planner is imperative. You can’t get anything done if you’re not constantly talking to the production manager or the engineers. I have to keep tabs on what’s coming or going.

For companies looking to attract or empower more women, they would need to look at what Senneca is doing with regard to its Diversity and Inclusion Committee. It’s progressive with people from all backgrounds, ethnicities and genders highlighting our differences and how it makes the business great.

Diversity is really important in a company because it allows companies to be more empathetic. The more people you have with different backgrounds and the different approaches that you have, the more well-rounded you become.

Makenna Deamer
Sales Application Engineer at Subzero Engineering

When you are surrounded by people who know and trust you as a good engineer, being a female engineer is no different than being a male one.

I’ve always been into engineering. My dad’s an engineer and he’s always encouraged me to kind of look into things and how and why they work. I’ve worked in various industries with different jobs, however, this is the first job that I’ve had where I actually have an engineering title.

As a female engineer, you tend to run into a lot of biases. It’s unfortunate and something that we can work to change. But the only way that we’re ever going to be able to change is by creating better environments in which those biases don’t exist.

There’s a lot of distrust but once you’ve earned that trust, it’s no longer a roadblock to breaking into a position. If you can get past the initial double-checking of your work or questioning your decisions, and get to a point where you are surrounded by people who know and trust you as a good engineer, being a female engineer is no different than being a male one.

One of the challenges as a woman in engineering is coming across as assertive, but not so much that it’s seen as emotional. One of the best ways that you can do this is by developing a good rapport with your team and encouraging a positive environment for women with the technology. This starts from the top down.

Collaborative environments that allow women to speak their piece within informal settings where it’s less likely to come across incorrectly, or teambuilding activities that help encourage women to find their voice and to encourage positive communication all help to contribute to a positive environment.

Getting women, especially young girls, interested in science, technology, engineering and math is critical. One of the best things about tech is that you can start children early getting into STEM and getting them comfortable with computers and science and asking those questions. This can make a huge difference in how comfortable they are within the environment. It can help counteract other biases that can happen as the more comfortable you are, the more you’re likely to stay within the field, even as challenges arise.

Yvette “Shorty” Garcia
Lead on Manufacturing Line at Subzero Engineering

We get more women into the industry by asking their opinions. Women are going to see that. They’re going to read this.

I’m the only lead woman out of six men. I can be more humble than the guys. I pay attention to my workers, I care about their opinions and what we’re doing. I take their advice and they always give me feedback. I like having women on my line because they can be more detail-oriented. I love working with women because they’re easy to train. Women want to be challenged and to learn and build.

We get more women into the industry by asking their opinions. Women are going to see that. They’re going to read this. They’re going to see somebody working in manufacturing or tech and that gives other young women the incentive to do the same.

Forging equality

When we inspire others to understand and value women’s inclusion, we forge a better world.

And when women themselves are inspired to be included, there’s a sense of belonging, relevance, and empowerment.

International Women’s Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating women’s social, economic, cultural, and political achievements. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality.

#InspireInclusion

Company

Press Release

Subzero Engineering Relocates Headquarters to New State-of-the-Art Facility in Salt Lake City, Utah

Subzero Engineering, the global leader in turnkey engineering solutions for data centers, industrial cleanrooms and mission-critical environments, is delighted to announce a new 155,000-square-foot facility in Salt Lake City, Utah. The extensive premises enables the company to expand its capabilities while enabling the company to relocate its Simplex manufacturing facility into the same premises.

The new headquarters is set to transform the industry with its cutting-edge amenities. The new facility comprises 95,000 square feet of dedicated manufacturing space, 25,000 square feet for shipping, receiving and storage, and an additional 35,000 square feet of office space.

This strategic move, coupled with recent expansions in the sales, engineering, manufacturing, and installation teams, positions Subzero Engineering for remarkable growth in the coming years.

The new facility, located at 805 South 3600 West, Salt Lake City, Utah, represents a significant milestone for the company and the industry as a whole. This new facility will provide the space needed to support the combined teams of Subzero Engineering and Simplex Modular Cleanrooms, one of the most prominent names in modular cleanrooms, softwall curtains, strip doors, separation and process isolation, and their growing customer base. It will also encourage and develop the collaboration and teamwork of both teams to assist customers with custom projects, product enhancements, and new products while delivering support for all cleanroom and separation needs.

With an entire area dedicated to research and development, the company will be in a pivotal position to progress innovation, design and productivity. This is expected to become a prominent resource, establishing the company as a key partner in the evolution of the industry.

Take a Video Tour OF THE FACILITY

Notable highlights of the relocation include:

Expansive Product Demo Room
The product demo room showcases the full range of the organization’s data center and cleanroom products, allowing customers to comprehensively explore their options. The new product demonstration room is a testament to the company’s commitment to showcasing its cutting-edge offerings.
Cross-Product Knowledge Sharing
The new facility fosters collaboration and knowledge sharing between the data center and cleanroom product lines.
Research and Development
The dedicated Research and Development area will be the company’s epicenter of innovation, driving the development of cutting-edge solutions.
Enhanced Inventory and Materials Storage
The larger space allows for expanded inventory stock and improved materials storage capabilities, ensuring timely deliveries and better service.
Improved Customer Support
With the additional personnel and facilities, Subzero Engineering is committed to providing even better customer support and assistance.
Central Shipping Hub
Salt Lake City’s strategic location as a central shipping hub will expedite shipping and receiving processes, benefiting customers nationwide.

Shane Kilfoil, President of Mission Critical Environments, covering both Subzero Engineering and Simplex product lines said: “We’ve gone from starting in a garage, to now having a 155,000 square foot facility and seven different production lines. We’ve also tripled our workforce to help keep up with demand over the past 18 months. We foresee that continuing — but we also recognize that not everything can be done just with people. So, we’re making active investments in machinery and automation that will help us to further keep up with demand and take the strain off our employees to allow them to focus on other more value-added offerings and solutions that we can give to the customers and end users.”

Schedule an in-Person tour of the facility

Data Center

Video

Data Center Sustainability and CFDs

Video Overview

In the first episode of “The Data Center Expert Series”, we’re joined by Gordon Johnson, Senior CFD Manager. Gordon talks us through his career and role at Subzero Engineering, before sharing insights into his latest white paper, titled The Future of Containment – Has Air Cooling Reached Its Limits? which looks into the cooling options available to cope with today’s rising demands on data centers.

Further highlights include:

Subzero Engineering’s company history and its key differentiators
Data center containment’s role in sustainability and cost savings
Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD), and why is it vital to help operators drive data center performance and efficiency
Insight from 15 years in the data center industry and the challenges facing the sector

Download the Whitepaper

Cleanrooms

Video

Simplex Cleanrooms Overview

Video Overview

In this latest installment of “The Cleanroom Expert Series”, we’re joined by Jerry Cross, Simplex Cleanroom Regional Sales Manager at Subzero Engineering. Jerry talks us through why Simplex cleanrooms by Subzero Engineering is the right choice for its customers and how, with a 40-year industry heritage, customers directly benefit from its industry knowledge and experience.

Other key discussion points and takeaways from this episode include:

Simplex product line history
Custom cleanroom solutions
The advantages of a modular cleanroom solution

Learn more about Simplex Cleanrooms by Subzero Engineering

Company

Video

Video Tour of Subzero Engineering’s Massive Industry-Leading Facility

Video Overview

Welcome to Subzero Engineering’s groundbreaking facility in the heart of Salt Lake City, Utah—an impressive 155,000 square-foot powerhouse of progress that’s set to redefine the industry. Join us on a journey through our state-of-the-art facility, where innovation meets immersion in our expansive product demo room showcasing cutting-edge data center and cleanroom solutions. Focused on collaboration, our cross-product knowledge-sharing approach brings together teams for comprehensive support on custom projects and new innovations. With a dedicated research and development area, we’re pushing the boundaries of engineering solutions. Our enhanced inventory and materials storage, coupled with a larger workforce, ensure efficient operations and improved customer support. Positioned strategically in Salt Lake City, a central shipping hub expedites deliveries nationwide. Hear from Shane Kilfoil, our President, as he reflects on our journey from a garage startup to this impressive facility, underscoring our commitment to value-added solutions. Join us in pioneering the future of turn-key engineering solutions for critical environments. Visit our website and schedule a tour to witness the Subzero Engineering difference firsthand.

Further highlights include:

Tour our expansive product demo room featuring our complete Data Center and Cleanroom product line
Learn how cross-product knowledge sharing contributes to the turn key solutions we provide for critical environments
Learn about the value of our dedicated Research and Development area
See our robust material and inventory storage capabilities
Gain confidence in our improved customer support department, ensuring your needs are met promptly and efficiently
Details about our centralized shipping hub which guarantees faster delivery times and smoother logistics

Read the Press Release

How does Simplex Cleanrooms Benefit from the New Facility?

Data Center

Press ReleaseProduct Insight

Subzero Engineering Expands Containment Portfolio with Acquisition of Dissolvable Air Barrier (DAB) Panels

PRESS RELEASE — Salt Lake City, UT

A Strategic Addition to Subzero’s Containment Solutions

Subzero Engineering is pleased to announce the acquisition of the Dissolvable Air Barrier (DAB) Panels product line from Cambridge R&D, further expanding Subzero’s portfolio of data center containment solutions and reinforcing its commitment to safety, performance, and turnkey system delivery.

DAB Panels are a unique overhead containment solution designed to provide effective airflow separation during normal data center operation while dissolving within seconds when exposed to water during sprinkler activation. This dissolvable design helps eliminate falling panel hazards and supports safer fire suppression outcomes—addressing a critical challenge found in traditional rigid overhead containment systems.

“With this acquisition, we’re strengthening our ability to deliver truly integrated, safety-driven containment solutions,” said Shane Kilfoil, President of Subzero Engineering. “DAB Panels complement our existing containment portfolio and give our customers another proven option to address airflow management and fire safety without compromise.”

Expanded Manufacturing and Streamlined Service

As part of the acquisition, manufacturing of DAB Panels has transitioned to Salt Lake City, Utah, effective December 15, 2025. This move allows Subzero to apply its established manufacturing standards, quality controls, and logistics infrastructure to the product line—ensuring consistency, reliability, and responsive customer support.

All existing product quotes issued prior to the acquisition will be honored during the transition period. Going forward, all DAB Panel inquiries, specifications, and orders will be handled directly by Subzero Engineering.

Designed for Modern Data Centers

DAB Panels are engineered for both hot aisle and cold aisle containment applications and offer a combination of airflow performance, safety, and installation flexibility. Made from EPA-certified, plant-based cellulose materials, the panels achieve Class A fire and smoke performance, producing low heat and minimal smoke while maintaining visibility for emergency personnel.

Despite their dissolvable design, DAB Panels remain durable during normal operation—withstanding high static air pressure and maintaining airflow separation where it matters most. Panels can be easily modified in the field to accommodate varying cabinet heights and existing infrastructure, eliminating the need to relocate sprinkler heads and reducing installation time and cost.

Part of a Complete Subzero Solution

DAB Panels integrate seamlessly across Subzero’s full portfolio of data center containment products, including aisle frames, doors, roofs, and airflow management systems. This unified approach enables Subzero to deliver turnkey containment solutions engineered for performance, safety, and long-term scalability—backed by a single partner and a coordinated system designed to work together.

Learn More

To learn more about Subzero’s Dissolvable Air Barrier Panels, explore technical specifications, or watch the product overview video, visit:
https://www.subzeroeng.com/dab-panels-product-overview-video/

About Subzero Engineering

Subzero Engineering specializes in turnkey, precision-engineered data center containment solutions designed for scalable, fast deployments in mission-critical environments. With a focus on performance, safety, and sustainability, Subzero’s solutions help maximize efficiency, reduce downtime, and support evolving data center demands. Since 2005, Subzero Engineering has been trusted by the world’s most demanding technology companies to contain critical environments and deliver reliable, customized solutions.

Data Center

Product SpotlightVideo

Subzero Dissolvable Air Barrier Panels (DAB) Overview Video

Subzero’s Dissolvable Air Barrier Panels (DAB Panels) deliver effective airflow containment while addressing a critical safety challenge in traditional overhead containment systems. Designed to maintain airflow separation during normal operation—and dissolve within seconds during sprinkler activation—DAB Panels help improve data center efficiency without introducing falling panel hazards during fire suppression events.

Why DAB Panels

In mission-critical environments, containment solutions must balance performance, safety, and adaptability. Traditional rigid panels can obstruct sprinkler systems or create hazards when displaced. DAB Panels were engineered to work with fire suppression systems—providing containment when needed and dissolving cleanly when safety takes priority.

Key Benefits:

Dissolvable by Design
Provides airflow separation during operation, then dissolves rapidly when exposed to water during sprinkler activation.
Safety-Driven Materials
Made from EPA-certified, plant-based cellulose materials—non-petroleum based and Class A fire rated.
Fire & Smoke Performance
Low heat, low smoke, and controlled burn behavior help preserve visibility for emergency personnel.
Durable in Operation
Withstands high static air pressure and maintains shape under normal operating conditions.
Flexible Installation
Lightweight, field-cuttable panels adapt easily to varying cabinet heights, infrastructure, and containment layouts—without relocating sprinkler heads.
Enhanced Strobe Visibility
Panel material diffuses fire alarm strobes, improving visual alerting throughout the containment space.

Designed for Real-World Data Centers

DAB Panels install quickly in both new builds and retrofit environments. Panels can be modified onsite to fit around cable trays, piping, and other overhead infrastructure, allowing full containment coverage to the ceiling while reducing installation time and cost.

Part of Subzero’s Turnkey Containment Solutions

DAB Panels integrate seamlessly across Subzero’s full portfolio of data center containment products—supporting truly turnkey solutions engineered for performance, safety, and long-term scalability. One partner. One system. Designed to work together.

Explore DAB Panel Specifications

Ready to dive deeper into technical details, certifications, and configuration options?

View DAB Panel Product Specifications

Data Center

Educational Article

Question & Answers: CDUs -The Brains of Direct Liquid Cooling

In this Q&A, Gordon Johnson, Senior CFD Manager at Subzero Engineering, explores the pivotal role CDUs play in transforming data center operations. From maintaining system integrity and adapting to variable AI workloads to driving energy efficiency and future scalability.

An Interview with Gordon Johnson, Senior CFD Manager at Subzero Engineering

Overview

As data centers evolve to meet the exponential power and cooling demands of AI and high-performance computing (HPC), traditional air-cooling methods are reaching their limits. Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) has emerged as the next frontier in thermal management, offering the precision and efficiency needed for today’s high-density workloads. At the heart of this innovation lies the Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) – the intelligent control layer that ensures safety, stability, and sustainability in liquid-cooled environments.

QUESTION: What initiated the transition towards Direct Liquid Cooling, and what makes CDUs crucial for development?

The increase in AI and high-performance computing (HPC) demands has pushed rack power densities beyond the capabilities of conventional air-cooling strategies. High-end server CPUs and GPUs are approaching or even exceeding 700–1000 watts per socket, especially in AI and HPC deployments, and air-cooling can’t remove the generated heat amounts effectively. Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC), especially Direct-to-Chip (DTC) cooling, delivers accuracy and thermal capacity needed at these densities. However, DLC works effectively with a control layer, which is the CDU, allowing for regulations on pressure, flow, and temperature to guarantee consistent thermal performance. It transforms liquid cooling from a mechanical method into an adaptive system to accommodate high-density workloads.

QUESTION: In what ways does the CDU maintain safety and stability in a liquid-cooled data center?

The CDU acts as a safeguard between the facility’s water system (FWS) and the IT equipment. It separates the technology cooling system (TCS) loop from pollutants, pressure variations, and chemical substances present in the FWS loop, guaranteeing that the fluid supplied to the cold plates attached directly to the CPUs and GPUs is pure, regulated, and non-conductive.

By utilizing integrated sensors, pumps, and heat exchangers, the CDU regulates the ideal coolant temperature and pressure, avoiding condensation, and safeguarding hardware from thermal fluctuations. This separation protects IT resources as well as improving predictability and operational performance throughout the cooling system.

QUESTION: AI and HPC tasks are recognized for quick changes in power consumption. How do CDUs handle this uncertainty?

AI training and inference tasks are highly variable. GPUs can either increase or decrease performance quickly, resulting in immediate temperature surges. CDUs address these changes by adjusting pump speeds, flow rates, temperature, and valve positions to evenly distribute the load.

By continuously adapting to the workflow demand, CDUs maintain stable pressure and temperature throughout all racks. This degree of regulation guarantees that even in unstable environments, operations can run with limited risks and maintain a prolonged equipment lifecycle.

QUESTION: Are there different types of CDUs for varying facility sizes and requirements?

CDUs are usually classified into two primary groups:

Liquid-to-Liquid CDUs: These utilize heat exchangers to move heat from the TCS (IT coolant loop) to the FWS and are best deployed for large-scale or HPC data centers with existing chilled water infrastructure.
Liquid-to-Air CDUs: These expel heat straight into the ambient air within the data center via an internal exchanger, rendering them ideal for smaller or edge facilities, and where a FWS or chilled water is unavailable.

Both offer similar control, isolation, and safety advantages, but the decision typically relies on the site’s existing infrastructure and cooling capability.

QUESTION: In what ways do CDUs help achieve sustainability and energy efficiency goals?

CDUs play a crucial role in sustainable thermal management as they help avoid excessive pumping and cooling, which are significant causes of energy wastage in data centers. Smart flow and temperature regulation enhance Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE), with PUE figures at times even reaching below 1.1.

Also, CDUs facilitate the integration of waste heat recovery systems, enabling operators to utilize surplus heat for district heating or industrial applications. This converts a byproduct into a sustainability resource, decreasing overall energy use and promoting circular energy approaches.

QUESTION: How do CDUs enhance scalability for future liquid cooling installations?

A significant benefit of the CDU is its flexibility, employing mixing and bypass control to adjust liquid coolant for particular IT loads. This adaptability allows operators to gradually implement liquid cooling, without the need for complete infrastructure overhauls. Therefore, CDUs render liquid cooling attainable, expandable, and secure, enabling data centers to progress alongside workload requirements and sustainability objectives.

QUESTION: What part do CDUs play in influencing the future of thermal management?

CDUs serve as the thermal regulation system in contemporary data centers. They provide intelligence, isolation, and efficiency to Direct Liquid Cooling, ensuring scalability, and sustainable functioning of high-density settings, and create an accurate framework that is purposefully designed for the AI era.

About Subzero Engineering:

Subzero Engineering specializes in providing turnkey, precision-engineered data center containment solutions that are designed for industry-leading functionality and scalable fast deployments. With a focus on sustainability, our solutions are built to provide maximum efficiency, minimize downtime, and reduce energy consumption. Our team of experts works closely with clients to understand their unique needs and requirements, and we pride ourselves on delivering customized solutions that exceed expectations. Whether you’re looking for a new data center build or an upgrade to an existing facility, our turnkey solutions are designed to deliver exceptional results. Since 2005, we have been containing critical environments and providing exceptional solutions to the world’s most demanding technology companies.

www.subzeroeng.com

Data Center

Educational Article

CDUs: The Brains of Direct Liquid Cooling

As AI and HPC workloads push rack densities beyond the limits of air cooling, Coolant Distribution Units have emerged as the intelligent control layer that makes direct liquid cooling scalable, stable, and safe.

By Subzero Engineering

Why Direct Liquid Cooling Requires an Intelligent Control Layer

Traditional air cooling has hit its limits as rack power densities surpass 100 kW due to the relentless growth of AI and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. Already, CPUs and GPUs exceed 700–1000 W per socket, while projections estimate 1500 W+ going forward. Fans and heat sinks are just unable to handle these thermal loads at scale; air cooling has hit its limits.

Hybrid cooling strategies are becoming the only scalable, sustainable path forward.

Single-phase direct-to-chip (DTC) liquid cooling has emerged as the most practical and serviceable solution, delivering coolant directly to cold plates attached to processors and accelerators. However, Direct Liquid Cooling (DLC) cannot be scaled safely or efficiently with plumbing alone. The key enabler is the Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) – a system that integrates pumps, heat exchangers, sensors, and control logic into a coordinated package.

CDUs are often mistaken for passive infrastructure. But far from being a passive subsystem, they act as the brains of DLC, orchestrating isolation, stability, adaptability, and efficiency to make DTC viable at data center scale. They serve as the intelligent control layer for the entire thermal management system.

Intelligent Orchestration

CDUs do a lot more than just transport fluid around the cooling system. They think, adapt, and protect the liquid cooling portion of the hybrid cooling system. They maintain redundancy to ensure continuous operation, control flow, and pressure using automated valves and variable speed pumps, filter particulates to protect cold plates, and maintain coolant temperature above the dew point to prevent condensation. They contribute to the precise, intelligent, and flexible coordination of the complete thermal management system.

Because of their greater cooling capacity, CDUs are ideal for large HPC data centers. However, because they must be connected to the facility’s chilled water supply or other heat rejection source to continuously provide liquid to the cold plates for cooling, they can be complicated.

CDUs typically fall into two categories:

Liquid to Liquid (L2L): Large HPC facilities are well-suited for high-capacity CDUs known as L2L. Through heat exchangers, they move chip heat into the isolated chilled water loop, such as the facility water system (FWS).
Liquid to Air (L2A): For smaller deployments, L2A CDUs are simpler but have a lower cooling capacity. By utilizing conventional HVAC systems, they transfer heat from the returning liquid coolant from the cold plates to the surrounding data center air by using liquid to air heat exchangers rather than a chilled water supply or FWS.

Isolation: Safeguarding IT from Facility Water

Acting as the bridge between the FWS and the dedicated technology cooling system (TCS), which provides filtered liquid coolant directly to the chips via cold plate, CDUs isolate sensitive server cold plates from external variability, ensuring a safe and stable environment while constantly adjusting to shifting workloads.

One of L2L CDU’s primary functions is to create a dual-loop architecture:

Primary loop (facility side): connects to building chilled water, district cooling, or dry coolers.
Secondary loop (IT side): delivers conditioned coolant directly to IT racks.

CDUs isolate the primary loop (which may carry contaminants, particulates, scaling agents or chemical treatments like biocides and corrosion inhibitors – chemistry that is incompatible with IT gear) from the secondary loop. As well as preventing corrosion and fouling, this isolation offers operators the safety margin that operators need for board-level confidence in liquid.

The integrity of the server cold plates is safeguarded by the CDU, which uses a heat exchanger to separate the two environments and maintain a clean, controlled fluid in the IT loop. Because CDUs are fitted with variable speed pumps, automated valves, and sensors, they can dynamically adjust the flow rate and pressure of the TCS to ensure optimal cooling even when HPC workloads change.

Stability: Balancing Thermal Predictability with Unpredictable Loads

HPC and AI workloads are not only high power, they are also volatile. GPU-intensive training jobs or changeable CPU workloads can cause high-frequency power swings, which without regulation, would translate into thermal instability. The CDU mitigates this risk by controlling temperature, pressure, and flow across all racks and nodes, absorbing dynamic changes and delivering predictable thermal conditions.

The CDU absorbs fluctuations by stabilizing temperature, pressure, and flow across all racks and nodes, regardless of how erratic the workload is. Sensor arrays ensure the cooling loop remains in accordance with specifications, while variable speed pumps modify flow to fit demand, and heat exchangers are calibrated to maintain an established approach temperature.

Adaptability: Bridging Facility Constraints with IT Requirements

The thermal architecture of data centers varies widely; some use warm-water loops that operate at temperatures between 20 and 40°C. By adjusting secondary loop conditions to align IT requirements with the facility, the CDU adjusts to these fluctuations. The CDU uses mixing or bypass control to temper supply water. It can alternate between tower-assisted cooling, free cooling, or dry cooler rejection depending on the environmental conditions, and it can adjust flow distribution among racks to align with real-time demand.

This adaptability makes DTC deployable in a variety of infrastructures without requiring extensive facility renovations. It also makes it possible for liquid cooling to be phased in gradually – ideal for operators who need to make incremental upgrades.

Efficiency: Enabling Sustainable Scale

Beyond risk and reliability, CDUs unlock possibilities that make liquid cooling a sustainable option.

By managing flow and temperature, CDUs eliminate the inefficiencies of over-pumping and over-cooling. They also maximize scope for free cooling and heat recovery integration such as connecting to district heating networks and reclaiming waste heat as a revenue stream or sustainability benefit. This allows operators to simultaneously lower PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) to values below 1.1 while simultaneously reducing WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness) by minimizing evaporative cooling. All this, while meeting the extreme thermal demands of AI and HPC workloads.

CDUs as the Thermal Control Plane

Viewed holistically, CDUs are far more than pumps and pipes. They are the thermal control plane for thermal management, orchestrating safe isolation, dynamic stability, infrastructure adaptability, and operational efficiency.

They translate unpredictable IT loads into manageable facility-side conditions, ensuring that single-phase DTC can be deployed at scale, enabling HPC and AI data centers to evolve into multi-hundred kW racks without thermal failure.

Without CDUs, direct-to-chip cooling would be risky, uncoordinated, and inefficient. With CDUs, it becomes an intelligent and resilient architecture capable of supporting 100 kW and higher racks and the escalating thermal demands of AI and HPC clusters.

As workloads continue to climb and rack power densities surge, the industry’s ability to scale hinges on this intelligence. CDUs are not a supporting component. They are the enabler of single-phase DTC at scale and a cornerstone of the future data center.

Data Center

Educational Article

Immersion Cooling: Lagging Today, Leading Tomorrow

While direct-to-chip cooling dominates today’s data centers, immersion cooling may ultimately define how the industry scales performance, efficiency, and sustainability tomorrow.

By Subzero Engineering

The Safe Choice Today vs. the Scalable Choice Tomorrow

For many large-scale deployments, direct-to-chip (DTC) single-phase cooling has emerged as the market’s preferred direct liquid cooling (DLC) technique.

It is easy to see why. DTC is dependable, well-established, and reasonably simple to incorporate into the current data center infrastructure. For risk-sensitive facilities that are wary of operational disruption or retrofit headaches, DTC is the logical choice, and that’s why it has become the dominant DLC standard.

But the “logical choice today” is not the same as the “best choice for the future.” Technically, the superior solution is immersion cooling. With the ability to support denser racks than air cooling or DTC, immersion cooling offers higher heat removal capacity by immersing entire servers in dielectric fluids. Right now, immersion cooling is mostly used in specific areas such as crypto mining, experimental high-performance computing, and some edge computing setups. However, it hasn’t gained much popularity in the data center market yet, mainly due to high initial costs, the need for special infrastructure, and the challenges of training people to use it.

But with the consistent trajectory of compute, energy economics, and environmental pressures, is immersion cooling simply waiting for its moment to shine?

Why DTC Leads Today

Today, DTC dominates the market due to its ease of use. DTC solutions can be deployed in standard racks with minimal retrofits, data center teams don’t need to undergo extensive retraining, and maintenance procedures stay somewhat familiar. More than anything else, DTC is a straightforward solution for organizations that are unable or unwilling to re-architect their environments for immersion cooling in the face of increasing power densities.

Why Immersion Lags

Immersion Cooling is still in the early adoption and growth phase rather than being fully mature however, its efficiency improvements indicate that it will soon move from being a specialized solution to a vital component of hyperscalers’, HPC operators’, and edge deployments’ thermal management arsenal.

So why isn’t immersion adopted more often if it is a technically superior solution?

High CAPEX: Immersion costs are significantly more than DTC retrofits because it requires specialized tanks, dielectric fluids, pumps, and monitoring systems.
Specialized Infrastructure: Racks replaced with tank-based designs require redesign of cabling, power distribution, and architectural layouts.
Learning Curve: Hardware compatibility, fluid handling, and maintenance considerations all call for retraining and skill sets.

The high initial expenditures, specific infrastructure requirements, and a process that hasn’t yet unified on a single model are the main obstacles to immersion today. Therefore, is it too disruptive to consider seriously?

The Case for Immersion

History has shown us that often the “niche” of today becomes the necessity of tomorrow.

Immersion cooling solves problems that DTC can only mitigate.

Unmatched thermal performance: Immersion can absorb heat from all components, not just CPUs and GPUs, by completely submerging servers in dielectric fluids.
Extreme density potential: Racks can be packed much more densely without needing to depend on airflow. This enables higher compute density per square foot.
Energy efficiency: Immersion cooling can significantly lower power usage associated with cooling. Power usage effectiveness (PUE) levels of 1.02 to 1.05 have been observed by some operators.
Sustainability: Immersion does not use water as the primary cooling method, which is a developing benefit in areas with water scarcity compared to evaporative cooling technologies. However, water may still be used indirectly to carry heat away from the dielectric fluid via heat exchangers and via chillers or cooling towers to reject heat from the building.
Hardware longevity: Immersion can increase the useable life of servers by removing hot spots and thermal cycling.

Additionally, immersion cooling eliminates the need of airflow from data center design. Operators can completely redesign facility layouts without the requirement for air-handling infrastructure, raised floors, or large HVAC systems. However, experts in both air and immersion cooling still predict a future where both air and immersion will coexist in the industry depending on specific cooling needs.

What Will Force the Shift?

Operators cannot afford ineffective thermal management as power costs grow, and the trajectory of compute power continues to rise. Rack power densities are already increasing beyond that which air and DTC cooling can sustainably handle as processors get near 1000W+ TDP levels. Energy prices remain volatile and demands for efficiency and sustainability are being driven by environmental challenges.

Can immersion’s higher upfront investment be justified when weighed against long-term energy savings, environmental benefits, and the ability to extend hardware lifecycles?

Tipping Point

In the near term, DTC will remain the workhorse, as it’s good enough to buy operators time without demanding a full architectural reset. However, immersion’s tipping point won’t arrive because the technology suddenly becomes more appealing. It will arrive when nothing else works. DTC won’t scale forever.

The long-term goal will likely be immersion. Workload trends, power densities, and sustainability requirements all point to a future in which immersion is not only viable but the only workable option.

At that point, immersion will go from trailing to prevailing, but the changes will go beyond thermal efficiency. Data center architecture will evolve, altering not just cooling strategies but the data center’s architecture. A new approach will be unlocked by tank-based designs, fluid-centric maintenance, and different hardware form factors, where cooling will no longer be a limitation but rather a facilitator of sustainability, performance and efficiency.

This is about enabling the next generation of computational infrastructure, not simply about cooling.

Conclusion

The issue is not if immersion will catch up, but rather when high-density workloads will force the shift.

When it does, will operators be prepared? Those who still view immersion as a fringe experiment run the danger of having to rush to catch up when DTC reaches its limit, whereas those early adopters will be able to take the lead since they will already be training, developing, and cultivating knowledge and expertise.

For data centers, the future of cooling won’t be about being cautious. It will belong to those who are brave enough to wager on immersion before the tipping point happens.

Data Center

Educational Article

Racing Against the Talent Gap: Sustaining Africa’s Data Center Growth

Africa’s data center industry is expanding at record speed, but a critical shortage of skilled professionals threatens its ability to sustain long-term growth.

By Subzero Engineering

Rapid growth is redefining infrastructure across Africa, exposing a critical gap in skilled human capital.

Africa’s data center capacity has more than doubled over the last five years, and analysts predict that the industry will have more than 1,000 MW of installed IT load by 2030.

With new facilities rushing to go online at an unprecedented rate, the meaning of “infrastructure” for African economies has changed because of the fintech revolution, e-commerce, and the rapid increase of cloud use.

However, beneath the optimism, Africa’s data center sector faces bottlenecks in financing, power reliability, and regulation. One of the most urgent issues to resolve is an acute shortage of skilled workers. The human infrastructure necessary for the operation and maintenance of this digital ecosystem is trailing significantly behind investments in physical infrastructure.

The faster the industry grows, the more exposed it becomes to its own human-capital deficit, and without a pipeline of skilled professionals, the continent’s data center ambitions risk outpacing its ability to sustain them.

The Infrastructure Challenge

Land, power, and regulation are the tangibles that data center investors typically concentrate on, but how these elements interact shows the difficulties of doing business in African marketplaces.

Grid instability is continuing to be a problem in more developed African economies like South Africa, but power problems are far more severe in Nigeria, where grid reliability can be less than 50% in many parts. As a result, energy costs can be significantly higher than comparable facilities in the Middle East or Europe.

Complicated licensing processes, shifting tax regimes, and inconsistent specifications and certifications all add to regulatory uncertainty, which hinders planning and delays projects. In addition, the devaluation of African currencies makes it difficult to fund major infrastructure projects, discourages long-term commitments, and increases the cost of imported equipment.

Nevertheless, the continent would still find it difficult to satisfy the expectations of its digital infrastructure sector even if these challenges were resolved tomorrow. The most critical issue is the lack of a robust workforce.

The Talent Gap

Operators across the continent report difficulty in finding competent engineers and technicians who understand the complex interactions that are required to run a modern facility.

Building and operating Tier III or Tier IV data centers requires specialized skills that are acquired over years. Professionals with specific expertise in international certification requirements, redundancy design, or high-density facilities are scarce at this level.

It doesn’t help that Africa is exporting the very skills it most urgently needs. Data center professionals are drawn to opportunities in Europe, the Middle East, and North America, where compensation is higher and professional development pathways have more clarity.

As a result, the continent trains but fails to retain its most prized human resources. Facilities lose experienced engineers, project teams lose continuity, and the next generation loses mentors. Organizations are forced into reactive hiring wars, poaching staff from competitors instead of expanding the market’s talent pool.

Invisible Industry

The shortage of skilled professionals in Africa’s data center sector is the predictable consequence of the way technical education, industry structure, and investment priorities have evolved.

For many young African engineers, they’ve been educated that ‘tech’ does not refer to the actual infrastructure but rather to software, coding, finance, or cloud apps.

Ironically, one of the most technically complex career pathways is the data center business, which is situated at the convergence of digital, electrical, and mechanical systems. However, without visibility, neither students nor early-career professionals will know that.

Fragmented Certification

Programs in critical infrastructure engineering and data center operations are not commonly offered at African educational institutions. Despite producing skilled graduates in IT, mechanical, and electrical engineering, it is rare to find those that have worked with mission-critical infrastructure.

Few regional institutions are certified to deliver Tier or BICSI training. Cost, travel, and the lack of recognized local training facilities are the main barriers to accessing these programs in Africa. The result is that only a small elite can afford to obtain global credentials, with most operators relying on informal or vendor-led training.

Underinvestment in Workforce Development

With limited funding and short project timelines, many operators choose to forego investment in structured development programs that foster long-term capability in favor of expecting recruits to arrive ‘job ready’.

When margins are tight, training budgets are frequently the first to be slashed. Businesses complain about the lack of trained labor, but few are building the foundation to generate it. Even when training is offered, it is often inward facing, instructing employees on specific site operations without developing those broader skill sets that are transferable across the industry.

Turning the Gap into an Opportunity

Classroom schooling alone is unlikely to be effective. Apprenticeship programs that blend academic instruction with practical training and rotating mentorship programs across power, cooling, and network teams expedite and establish operational readiness.

Organizations collaborating with local colleges to establish training centers can facilitate access to resources, educational programs, and certification systems that meet globally recognized standards. Successful cases in Asia and the Middle East show that such partnerships can revolutionize national skill sets in just a few years.

Practical governmental policy levers include co-funding vocational programs, accelerating the certification process, and offering tax incentives to companies that invest in training. Pilot projects are yielding promising results in South Africa and Keya, but an ongoing commitment is needed to scale these programs across the continent.

Sustainable Growth

Africa will continue to attract investment due to its thirst for data, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing, but this investment won’t result in sustained growth unless the industry develops its people infrastructure with the same vigor as its physical infrastructure.

Personal growth, not just compensation, determines retention. Operators that provide possibilities for international certification, exposure to innovative technologies, and clear career development pathways will see that employees are far less likely to leave when they see opportunities for advancement at home.

The fastest return on investment in the data center industry is the investment in people. It is important to remember that every engineer trained today can become a teacher for the next generation. Organizations that invest in workforce development, embed training, and retain experienced professionals will pull away from those that don’t. The race is not against time or technology; it’s against the widening talent gap, and Africa’s young population represents its greatest opportunity to build a sustainable digital backbone.

CompanyData Center

TeamVideo

Inside Subzero’s New APAC Facility: Faster Delivery, Smarter Design, Global Innovation

Shane Kilfoil, Subzero President

Take a deep dive into Subzero Engineering’s newest APAC Center of Excellence in Vietnam, guided by President Shane Kilfoil.

In this interview, Shane explains how the Vietnam facility is transforming Subzero’s global operations—accelerating product delivery, strengthening supply chain resilience, and enabling 24/7 engineering collaboration across the US, EMEA, and APAC.

You’ll learn how Subzero is preparing for the next generation of data centers through innovations in containment, hybrid cooling, sustainability, and region-specific engineering.

What you’ll discover in this video:

Why Subzero chose Vietnam as its APAC manufacturing hub
How local engineering cuts lead times and improves customer responsiveness
The role of 24/7 global engineering collaboration
Innovations supporting AI, high-density, and liquid-cooling environments
How sustainability is built into both the facility and the product line
The company’s strategy for serving hyperscale and enterprise customers worldwide

Key Themes:

Speed. Innovation. Sustainability. Customer-driven engineering.
This facility represents a major leap forward in Subzero’s mission to build smarter, more efficient, and future-ready data center infrastructure.

Take a Video Tour of the APAC facility

CompanyData Center

TeamVideo

How Subzero Engineering Is Powering APAC’s Data Center Future: Insights from GM Midge Pan

Midge Pan, Subzero APAC General Manager is interviewed

Building Tomorrow’s Leaders Today

In this in-depth interview, Midge Pan, General Manager for Subzero Engineering APAC, explains how Subzero is redefining data center performance across one of the world’s fastest-growing digital infrastructure regions. From hybrid cooling innovations to rapid modular deployment, this video highlights the strategy behind Subzero Engineering’s Vietnam facility and APAC-wide expansion.

This video gives a clear look at how Subzero Engineering is solving next-generation cooling, sustainability, and speed-to-deployment challenges across Asia Pacific—while setting new global standards for reliability and efficiency.

In this video you will learn:

How Subzero Engineering solves complex APAC data center challenges
- Solving root problems—not symptoms—through deep customer embedding
- Modular designs that deploy in weeks, not months
- Instant global knowledge-sharing: a solution proven in Singapore benefits Sydney immediately
- R&D that anticipates AI and edge-driven workloads before the market demands them
Why Vietnam is central to Subzero’s APAC strategy
- APAC manufacturing anchor enabling up to 50% faster lead times
- Central access to Japan, ASEAN, and Australia
- Growing regional tech talent and strong export/trade positioning
- Tight integration with the Singapore sales and service hub
Engineering excellence with local adaptation
- Global standards, engineered locally for APAC’s varied climates
- Systems designed for humidity, dust, heat, and rapid deployment
- Smart customization with standardized components delivers up to 40% faster installation
- Flexible containment systems adapted to local regulations and energy grids
What’s driving the next era of APAC data centers
- AI density: Hybrid cooling already deployed while others still catch up
- Sustainability mandates: Containment delivering ~30% energy reduction
- Edge expansion: New markets requiring faster, compact, modular solutions
How Subzero measures what matters to customers
- Time-to-solution
- Deployment speed
- Knowledge-transfer velocity across US, EMEA, and APAC
- Lifecycle value and total cost of ownership—not just upfront costs
Overcoming APAC’s top three regional challenges
- Supply chain disruptions: Vietnam facility ensures quality control and timing
- Power constraints: Containment reduces cooling energy by ~30% and lowers PUE
- Regulatory changes: Fast adaptation through modular, compliant containment systems
How APAC trends are shaping Subzero’s global roadmap
- Slimmer, smarter containment for tidal spaces
- Tougher seals and environmental tuning for tropical climates
- Faster, more modular assemblies now applied worldwide

Why this matters

Subzero Engineering’s APAC strategy is about more than speed—it’s about building smarter, more sustainable, future-proof data centers across the region. Vietnam and Singapore together form a powerful engine for innovation, regional responsiveness, and next-generation cooling solutions.

APAC isn’t just adopting the future of digital infrastructure. It’s helping define it.

Contact our APAC Team

Company

Press Release

Subzero Engineering Strengthens Global Reach with Launch of New Vietnam Facility

Subzero Engineering, global leader in data center containment and cleanroom solutions, is expanding its global footprint with the launch of a major new facility in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Serving as a central hub for Subzero’s Asia-Pacific operations, the facility represents a significant step in the company’s strategic global expansion and underscores its long-term commitment to the APAC region.

“This expansion is about more than infrastructure — it’s about proximity to our partners, agility in the supply chain and speed to market,” said Midge Pan, General Manager, APAC – Subzero Engineering. “Vietnam offers a unique combination of talent, resilience and strategic location that enables us to meet APAC’s growing demand for cutting-edge digital infrastructure.”

A Center of Excellence for Manufacturing and Innovation

The Ho Chi Minh City facility will function as a global center of excellence supporting the company’s global Application Engineering teams. The site will house manufacturing, design, research and development operations, and produce Subzero’s suite of solutions, including hot and cold aisle containment systems, aisle frames, modular enclosures and airflow management technologies.

The addition of a dedicated R&D space will also accelerate product innovation tailored for APAC’s rapidly evolving data center landscape – particularly solutions optimized for AI, high-density computing and sustainability.

“This new facility is a strategic cornerstone in Subzero’s global vision — designed to integrate localized innovation with global scale.” said Shane Kilfoil, President of Subzero Engineering. “By establishing a center of excellence in Vietnam, we’re not just expanding our footprint; we’re embedding agility, resilience, and sustainability into the core of our operations. This allows us to respond faster to APAC’s dynamic market demands while strengthening our worldwide supply chain and advancing our mission to lead the future of intelligent, energy-efficient data center infrastructure.”

Investing in People and the Future

Subzero Engineering’s expansion demonstrates confidence in Vietnam’s knowledge economy. The facility will generate over 50 highly skilled positions across engineering and technical functions, with opportunities for software engineers, R&D professionals, and advanced factory specialists.

Plans are also underway to develop partnerships with local universities and technical institutes, creating internship and training opportunities to feed a sustainable pipeline of skilled talent.

Built for Sustainability

Subzero is establishing its APAC operational hub in Vietnam within a high-performance, sustainability-advanced facility designed to minimize environmental impact. The site incorporates large-scale solar energy generation, energy-efficient systems, and sustainable building practices, enabling low-carbon operations from day one. By choosing this future-ready infrastructure, Subzero is aligning its regional footprint with its global environmental goals, demonstrating that operational excellence and ecological responsibility go hand in hand.

“This facility represents our long-term commitment to sustainable innovation and local impact across the APAC region,” said Pan. “We’re building a future-ready operation that combines environmental responsibility with engineering excellence, enabling us to deliver smarter, more efficient solutions faster. By investing in local talent and sustainable practices, we’re not just expanding our footprint—we’re raising the standard for what global operations can be in the data center industry.”

A Global Vision Made Local

The Vietnam facility aligns with Subzero Engineering’s vision of being a truly global company, not only present in key markets but embedded within them. With operations now spanning North America, Europe and APAC, Subzero is ideally positioned to support the next generation of data centers with consistent quality, localized expertise and rapid responsiveness.

“This new facility is a tangible expression of our commitment to Asia-Pacific and our belief in Vietnam’s role in shaping the future of digital infrastructure,” added Kilfoil. “It’s an exciting new chapter for our global story.”

About Subzero Engineering

Watch a Video Tour of the APAC Facility

Company

Video

Inside Subzero’s New APAC Center of Excellence in Vietnam

A next-generation manufacturing and R&D hub built in APAC, for APAC—designed to accelerate innovation, cut lead times, and power sustainable, AI-ready data centers.

Subzero Engineering has expanded its global footprint with a new manufacturing and R&D facility in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This APAC hub combines advanced engineering, local manufacturing, and sustainability-focused infrastructure to deliver faster, smarter, and more efficient containment and cooling solutions across the region—and around the world.

Watch the FACILITY Tour VIDEO

READ THE PRESS RELEASE

Experience the Vietnam Facility

Take a guided tour of Subzero’s new APAC Center of Excellence. In this video, our leadership team walks you through the vision behind the facility, the technology inside it, and what it means for customers across Asia-Pacific and beyond.

See how factory and engineering teams collaborate under one roof
Learn how local manufacturing cuts lead times by up to 50%
Discover how we’re preparing for AI, high-density, and edge workloads
Explore the sustainability features built into the site from day one

A Global Hub for Manufacturing, R&D and Application Engineering

Our Ho Chi Minh City facility serves as Subzero Engineering’s APAC manufacturing and R&D hub—and a global center of excellence for next-generation containment and airflow solutions.

Bringing factory space and engineering space together, the site supports:

Manufacturing of hot and cold aisle containment, aisle frames, modular enclosures, and airflow management systems
Application Engineering & R&D focused on AI, high-density computing, and hybrid cooling
24/7 engineering collaboration, with teams in Vietnam, the Americas, and EMEA working around the clock to solve customer challenges

By embedding engineering talent directly alongside production, we shorten design-to-deployment cycles, improve quality, and keep innovation tightly aligned with real-world data center needs.

Designed Around APAC’s Fastest-Growing Data Center Markets

The Asia-Pacific region is one of the fastest-growing data center markets in the world—characterized by higher power densities, diverse climates, and aggressive deployment timelines.

Our Vietnam facility puts us closer to our customers and their challenges, enabling:

Regional responsiveness: Shorter lead times and reduced reliance on long-haul shipping and air freight
Solutions tailored to local conditions: Containment and cooling designed for APAC climates, regulations, and grid realities
“APAC for APAC” innovation: Local teams co-creating with customers on edge, AI, and next-generation data center designs

From Singapore to Sydney to Tokyo, customers benefit from solutions that are engineered globally—but optimized and delivered locally.

Faster Lead Times, Stronger Supply Chain

With Vietnam joining our existing facilities in the US and Dublin, Subzero now operates a more balanced and resilient global network.

Customers gain:

Lead times reduced by up to 50%—in many cases, delivery in 4–6 weeks instead of three months
Greater control over quality and timing thanks to local manufacturing and advanced ERP systems
Reduced logistics risk and cost, with strategic proximity to ports, suppliers, and export hubs
A second global hub that supports quick pivots and rapid customization to meet shifting demand across US, EMEA, and APAC

This expansion strengthens our ability to deliver consistent global product lines with the local flexibility each market requires.

Future-Ready, Low-Carbon Operations from Day One

The Vietnam facility is housed within a sustainability-focused industrial complex designed to minimize environmental impact and support long-term energy goals.

Key features include:

Large-scale solar energy generation integrated across the industrial park
High-performance building design with energy-efficient systems and low-power LED lighting
Use of recyclable and sustainable materials in office and production spaces

Across our portfolio, Subzero solutions help data centers achieve meaningful energy savings—often around 30% cooling energy reduction when optimized containment and hybrid cooling are deployed.

By pairing a low-carbon facility with energy-efficient products, we align APAC operations with our global mission to lead in intelligent, sustainable data center infrastructure.

Growing Local Talent, Advancing Global Innovation

Subzero’s investment in Vietnam reflects our belief in the country’s engineering talent and innovation potential.

The facility will create 50+ highly skilled roles across:

Software and application engineering
R&D and product development
Advanced manufacturing and factory operations

We are also exploring partnerships with universities and technical institutes to build internship and training programs that support a long-term, sustainable talent pipeline.

By tapping into Vietnam’s dynamic tech workforce, we strengthen our ability to design and deliver the next generation of containment, cooling, and airflow solutions—for APAC and for the world.

Learn More & Connect with Our APAC Team

Our Vietnam facility marks an important chapter in Subzero Engineering’s global journey—and we’re just getting started.

Watch the full tour, explore the press release, and connect with us to discuss how our APAC Center of Excellence can support your next data center project.

Watch the facility tour

Read the press release

Contact our APAC Team

Jane Neil Of Subzero Engineering On How We Can Increase Girls’ Participation in Engineering and Robotics

Normalize Female Engineers: Using social media to showcase women in engineering can normalize the presence of women in these roles and make them more relatable to young girls.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

What inspired you to pursue a career in engineering or robotics, and how can we replicate that inspiration for young girls?

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?

This might be intuitive to you but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should enter the Engineering and Robotics fields?

Can you please share “5 Things We Need To Increase Girls’ Participation in Engineering and Robotics?”

In your opinion, what are the most effective ways to introduce girls to engineering and robotics at an early age?

How do you think the portrayal of women in STEM fields by media and educational materials impacts girls’ interest in engineering and robotics?

What advice would you give to girls who are interested in engineering and robotics but are hesitant to take the first step?

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

How AI is Revolutionizing the Data Center Industry

Operational Efficiency

Energy Management

Cooling

Conclusion

Harnessing the Power of Operational Scalability

The investment of time and energy resources

Scaling up

Scalability or sustainability

Change management

Industry shifts

International Women’s Day 2024

In celebration of International Women’s Day 2024, we applaud some of the women within Senneca and Subzero Engineering who buck the trend of bias, stereotypes and discrimination.

Alexa McFarlaneBuyer in the Supply Chain for Subzero Engineering

Cathy KnutsonOffice Manager & Site Services Install Team Coordinator

Chelsea TraverVice President of Finance at Senneca Holdings

Gloria HuegelVice President of Human Resources at Senneca and Subzero Engineering

Jane NeilSupply Chain Manager at Subzero Engineering

Liz CarranzaProduction Planner at Subzero Engineering

Makenna DeamerSales Application Engineer at Subzero Engineering

Yvette “Shorty” GarciaLead on Manufacturing Line at Subzero Engineering

Forging equality

#InspireInclusion

Subzero Engineering Relocates Headquarters to New State-of-the-Art Facility in Salt Lake City, Utah

Notable highlights of the relocation include:

Data Center Sustainability and CFDs

Video Overview

Further highlights include:

Simplex Cleanrooms Overview

Video Overview

Other key discussion points and takeaways from this episode include:

Video Tour of Subzero Engineering’s Massive Industry-Leading Facility

Video Overview

Subzero Engineering Expands Containment Portfolio with Acquisition of Dissolvable Air Barrier (DAB) Panels

A Strategic Addition to Subzero’s Containment Solutions

Expanded Manufacturing and Streamlined Service

Designed for Modern Data Centers

Part of a Complete Subzero Solution

Learn More

About Subzero Engineering

Subzero Dissolvable Air Barrier Panels (DAB) Overview Video

Why DAB Panels

Key Benefits:

Designed for Real-World Data Centers

Part of Subzero’s Turnkey Containment Solutions

Explore DAB Panel Specifications

Question & Answers: CDUs -The Brains of Direct Liquid Cooling

In this Q&A, Gordon Johnson, Senior CFD Manager at Subzero Engineering, explores the pivotal role CDUs play in transforming data center operations. From maintaining system integrity and adapting to variable AI workloads to driving energy efficiency and future scalability.

Overview

QUESTION: What initiated the transition towards Direct Liquid Cooling, and what makes CDUs crucial for development?

QUESTION: In what ways does the CDU maintain safety and stability in a liquid-cooled data center?

QUESTION: AI and HPC tasks are recognized for quick changes in power consumption. How do CDUs handle this uncertainty?

QUESTION: Are there different types of CDUs for varying facility sizes and requirements?

QUESTION: In what ways do CDUs help achieve sustainability and energy efficiency goals?

QUESTION: How do CDUs enhance scalability for future liquid cooling installations?

QUESTION: What part do CDUs play in influencing the future of thermal management?

About Subzero Engineering:

CDUs: The Brains of Direct Liquid Cooling

As AI and HPC workloads push rack densities beyond the limits of air cooling, Coolant Distribution Units have emerged as the intelligent control layer that makes direct liquid cooling scalable, stable, and safe.

Why Direct Liquid Cooling Requires an Intelligent Control Layer

Intelligent Orchestration

Isolation: Safeguarding IT from Facility Water

Stability: Balancing Thermal Predictability with Unpredictable Loads

Adaptability: Bridging Facility Constraints with IT Requirements

Efficiency: Enabling Sustainable Scale

Alexa McFarlane
Buyer in the Supply Chain for Subzero Engineering

Cathy Knutson
Office Manager & Site Services Install Team Coordinator

Chelsea Traver
Vice President of Finance at Senneca Holdings

Gloria Huegel
Vice President of Human Resources at Senneca and Subzero Engineering

Jane Neil
Supply Chain Manager at Subzero Engineering

Liz Carranza
Production Planner at Subzero Engineering

Makenna Deamer
Sales Application Engineer at Subzero Engineering

Yvette “Shorty” Garcia
Lead on Manufacturing Line at Subzero Engineering