Sealand: Data center drives growth in liquid cooling demand, focusing on core refrigerant materials in the upstream sector.

Sealand released a research report stating that, according to Semianalysis, the installed capacity of global AI computing centers is expected to reach 7GW by 2024, with further growth expected by 2028. Liquid cooling in data centers is being driven by two main factors: high heat dissipation and high power consumption. Currently, cold plate liquid cooling and immersion liquid cooling are the two main mainstream liquid cooling solutions for data centers. 1) Selection of cooling medium: Currently, cold plate liquid cooling and immersion liquid cooling are the two main mainstream liquid cooling solutions for data centers. According to whether the cooling medium undergoes vaporization in the cooling process, cold plate liquid cooling can be further divided into single-phase and phase-change types. Traditional single-phase cold plate liquid cooling typically only covers individual high-power chips such as CPUs and GPUs. With the increase in chip power consumption, the industry has begun to adopt phase-change liquid cooling technology. Immersion liquid cooling is mainly divided into synthetic oil and fluorinated liquid categories. Sealand's main points are as follows: - Growing demand for AI data centers, with liquid cooling driven by two main factors According to Semianalysis, the installed capacity of global AI computing centers is expected to reach 7GW by 2024, with further growth expected by 2028. Liquid cooling in data centers is driven by two main factors: 1) high heat dissipation: as the space for further multicore performance improvement is limited, increasing power becomes an important choice. As chip power density increases, the demand for high heat dissipation expands, and air cooling can no longer meet the current cooling requirements; 2) high power consumption: data centers are high-power consumption industries, with cooling systems accounting for about 40% of total data center energy consumption, making refrigeration power consumption a key factor affecting PUE value. - Selection of cooling medium: Currently, cold plate liquid cooling and immersion liquid cooling are the two main mainstream liquid cooling solutions for data centers 1) Cold plate type: Depending on whether the cooling medium undergoes vaporization in the cooling process, cold plate cooling can be further divided into single-phase and phase-change types. Traditional single-phase cold plate liquid cooling typically only covers CPUs, GPUs, and other high-power chips. With the increase in chip power consumption, the industry has begun to adopt phase-change liquid cooling technology. Compared to traditional single-phase indirect liquid cooling, double-phase indirect liquid cooling has a smaller temperature gradient and faster heat transfer rate. Recommendations: Haohua Chemical Science & Technology Corp., Zhejiang Juhua, Zhejiang Sanmei Chemical Industry. 2) Immersion type: Immersion liquid cooling is mainly divided into synthetic oil and fluorinated liquid categories. Synthetic oil includes hydrocarbon synthetic oil and organosiloxane oil. Recommendations: Satellite Chemical. Silicone oil has high temperature resistance, good insulation properties, but early flowability may be insufficient, leading to local overheating risks. The comprehensive performance of silicone oil is gradually being optimized to meet the cooling requirements of data centers. Fluorinated liquids, due to their high chemical stability, low dielectric constant, and good flowability, are one of the ideal refrigerants for data center immersion cooling. Fluorinated liquids mainly include perfluoroalkanes, perfluoroolefins, perfluoroamines, perfluoropolyethers, etc. Recommendations: Shenzhen Capchem Technology, Zhejiang Juhua, Shanghai Huayi Group Corporation, Zhejiang Yonghe Refrigerant. Suggestions for consideration: Beijing Bayi Space Lcd Technology Co., Ltd. (and recommended unlisted companies: Zhejiang Noah, Tianjin Changlu). Heat dissipation components: Recommendations: Darbond Technology. Risk warning: Risks include data center installation volume falling short of expectations, policy risks, underperformance of key companies, significant fluctuations in product prices, new capacity construction falling short of expectations, and discrepancies between data statistics and actual situations.