- Mikros has been providing liquid cooling technology for aerospace applications for more than three decades
- The company was recently acquired by Jabil to help it target the data center market
- CEO Drew Matter told Fierce it has the ability to easily cool 3,000-watt chips - which is a big deal as GPU power levels continue to climb
The International Space Station and the data center next door are about to have something in common: liquid cooling technology from Mikros Technologies.
Founded in 1991, Mikros Technologies was originally focused on creating thermal management technology for space-based applications. But with the heat density of high-performance compute chips like GPUs skyrocketing in recent years, the company saw an opportunity to apply its liquid cooling prowess to a new market.
Now, it’s putting the pedal to the metal, announcing a deal to be acquired by big-name contract manufacturer Jabil to massively scale its operations. Indeed, Mikros CEO Drew Matter said the Jabil acquisition will help Mikros ramp its manufacturing capacity from a few hundred thousand cold plates per year to millions so it can meet the demands of multiple large clients.
“The ability to do 3,000-watt chips is something we’ve been able to do for three decades,” Matter told Fierce. It primarily uses single-phase cold plate technology to do this, though it also offers two-phase and immersion systems.
That’s notable given there have been questions about the viability of single-phase direct to chip liquid cooling beyond 2,000 watts. Only a handful of other companies – including JetCool, which itself was just acquired by manufacturer and data center supplier Flex – have been able to demonstrate cooling at higher levels without moving into two-phase territory.
“For 30 years we’ve been able to dissipate 1,000 watts in one square centimeter, which is about the size of your thumbnail,” Matter continued. “So, when you think about the next-gen GPU ASIC that is coming out, those are 1 kilowatt but over a much larger area and that’s not a problem for us.”
Matter said Mikros’ secret sauce is a U-shaped microchannel matrix within the cold plate. Basically, the channels run perpendicular to the surface of the chip, allowing them to pick up heat both as the coolant flows down the surface as well as on the return journey up the other side of the U. This allows for better heat transfer at a lower flow rate than other solutions need to use.
The matrix also enables the company to target hot spots on a chip with increased cooling power where needed. This makes its design agile, with the ability to be tweaked to meet a chip’s unique needs, he said.
Prospects
Matter declined to name any of the companies it is working with due to non-disclosure agreements. However, he did note it is working with a range of companies on designs for future chip releases coming out in 2025, 2026 and 2027.
Mikros will be competing head to head with the likes of direct liquid cooling vendors CoolIT, JetCool, Zutacore, Accelsius and Iceotope as well as with immersion players like Submer, LiquidStack and Asperitas.
Dell’Oro Group Research Director Lucas Beran told Fierce that Mikros is a “strong engineering company” but has “historically been more challenged in supporting the data center industry” due to limited scale. The Jabil deal, however, “helps provide them with the appropriate resources to overcome this scale challenge, which makes them a more appealing partner or vendor, specifically with dealing with hyperscaler end users.”
Dell’Oro predicted in July that cumulative liquid cooling revenue will hit $15 billion by 2028, with annual revenue surpassing $4.2 billion that same year. Single phase direct liquid cooling – like the cold plate technology Mikros and others offer – is expected to dominate and account for more than half of market share, Beran previously told Fierce.
In case you missed it, you can find the full liquid cooling market forecast here.