Asetek InRackCDU — 80 kW Warm-Water Direct-to-Chip CDU

Specifications

Overview

The Asetek InRackCDU is a rack-level cooling distribution unit built around a liquid-to-liquid heat exchanger mounted in a 4U cabinet at the top of the rack, with distribution manifolds feeding direct-to-chip (D2C) coolers inside each server. It rejects up to 80 kW of heat from one rack while accepting facility water as warm as 45 °C, which is the property that removes mechanical chillers from the design entirely.

The architecture is deliberately hybrid: Asetek's D2C ingredient coolers are drop-in replacements for air heat sinks on CPUs, GPUs and memory, and they capture 60 % to 80 % of the server's total heat. The remainder — drives, NICs, VRMs, PSUs — stays on air and is handled by the chassis fans. That split matters commercially because it means a mainstream server SKU can be offered in both air and D2C variants with minimal mechanical change, and it means the CDU sizing calculation is based on a known fraction of IT load rather than a guess.

Density is the pay-off: Asetek claims 2.5x to 5x rack-density improvement because the high-flux components no longer dictate airflow. The CDU supports up to three cooling loops per rack unit, connects to the facility hoses with tool-less fittings so a rack can be commissioned quickly, and reports warnings and alarms through an integrated monitoring system. Because the return water leaves hot enough for building heat reuse, the InRackCDU is also the common choice where waste-heat recovery is a design requirement rather than an afterthought.

Key Benefits

80 kW per rack lifts a single cabinet into the accelerator-density class. 45 °C facility water tolerance eliminates chillers and their power draw. 60-80 % heat capture via drop-in D2C coolers on CPU, GPU and memory. 3 loops per RU and modular manifolds scale the design. Tool-less hose connections shorten commissioning. Heat-reuse ready — return water is hot enough for district heating or process pre-heat.

Applications

HPC and supercomputing clusters; AI training racks with high-TDP GPUs; liquid-cooled colocation and edge data centers; waste-heat reuse and district-heating projects; research and university compute centres; racks transitioning from air to direct-to-chip cooling without replacing the servers wholesale.

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