Zhongtai: Nvidia's Rubin shifts to full liquid cooling, liquid cooling industry reaches an inflection point for volume ramp-up

Zhongtai released a research report stating that rising AI liquid cooling penetration combined with growth in full-rack shipments is driving mainland Chinese manufacturers to actively enter the overseas liquid cooling supply chain. TrendForce forecasts that AI chip liquid cooling penetration will rise from about 33% in 2025 to 53% in 2026, and Nvidia's GB/VR full-rack solution shipments are expected to double year over year. Following the liquid cooling volume ramp-up trend, mainland manufacturers are actively entering the overseas liquid cooling supply chain. CCID CONSULTING data shows that China's liquid cooling data center market reached RMB15.98 billion in 2025, up 45.2% year over year. Of this, liquid cooling equipment and component sales reached RMB14.89 billion, accounting for about 93%. Meanwhile, Nvidia is expanding its ODM/OEM supplier selection and Google has published CDU technical specifications, providing opportunities for mainland manufacturers to further expand into core components such as UQDs and CDUs. Zhongtai's main views are as follows: AI rack power consumption continues to rise, with Nvidia, Google and domestic super nodes jointly driving liquid cooling demand volume growth Growth in AI computing demand is driving continuous data center expansion, and AI rack power is also rising rapidly. Traditional data center rack power is typically about 5-10kW, the GB200 NVL72 full rack is about 125-135kW, and the next-generation rack GB300 NVL72 rises to about 132-140kW. As AI rack power rises rapidly, the heat dissipation pressure on traditional air cooling increases accordingly, and liquid cooling is gradually becoming an important heat dissipation method for high-power AI racks. Nvidia's liquid cooling demand benefits from both increased rack shipments and higher liquid cooling configuration per rack. GB200 has entered the stage of large-scale deployment, with GB300 and Vera Rubin ramping up successively. Among them, Rubin further upgrades from liquid cooling of key components such as CPU and GPU to full-rack full liquid cooling, incorporating components such as networking, power supply and optical modules into liquid cooling and eliminating system fans, driving continued increases in configurations such as cold plates, UQDs, manifolds and piping. According to J.P. Morgan, excluding CDUs, the value of heat dissipation components per Vera Rubin rack is about 37% higher than that of GB300. At the same time, Google continues to expand the scale of its TPU liquid cooling clusters, and Meta is accelerating the adoption of liquid cooling in new AI data centers. Domestic super nodes such as those of Alibaba and Huawei increase computing power by increasing the number of chips and the scale of interconnection, with system power consumption and heat dissipation demand rising in tandem. Liquid cooling demand is further expanding from Nvidia to more AI computing platforms. Cold plate liquid cooling has entered large-scale application, and Rubin further increases the value of secondary-side liquid cooling Cold plate liquid cooling is the current mainstream application solution. The upstream of the liquid cooling industry chain provides liquid cooling equipment and components, the midstream is responsible for system design, integration and delivery, and the downstream mainly consists of internet and cloud vendors, telecom operators and government and enterprise customers. A liquid cooling system consists of two loops, the primary side and the secondary side. The secondary side directly removes heat from chips, the primary side is responsible for discharging heat out of the computer room, and the CDU connects the two loops and completes heat exchange. Cold plate liquid cooling is relatively mature and requires little change to existing server structures, and has now become the main liquid cooling solution for data centers. Rubin's full liquid cooling further increases the number of secondary-side liquid cooling components and liquid paths, driving continuous upgrades in liquid cooling specifications. As liquid cooling coverage expands from GPU and CPU to components such as DIMMs, switch chips and optical modules, liquid paths within trays and at the rack level increase in tandem, driving higher configurations of cold plates, UQDs, manifolds and piping. At the same time, cold plates are improving heat dissipation capability for higher-power chips, UQDs are upgrading toward larger flow capacity and blind-mate structures, manifolds are further adding intra-tray liquid distribution, and CDUs are upgrading toward MW-level power and greater liquid supply capacity. Taiwanese and European/American manufacturers are the main suppliers in the overseas liquid cooling supply chain, while domestic manufacturers are accelerating their entry Supply of core overseas liquid cooling components is relatively concentrated, with Taiwanese and European/American manufacturers as the main suppliers. Nvidia's and Google's cold plates, manifolds, UQDs and CDUs are mainly supplied by Taiwanese and European/American companies such as Auras, AVC and Vertiv. Among Taiwanese manufacturers, Auras, AVC and Cooler Master are highly competitive; among European/American manufacturers, Vertiv is in a leading position, and CoolIT and Boyd are also important competitors. Taking Vera Rubin cold plates as an example, as of April 2026, the shares of Cooler Master, AVC, Jentech Precision and Delta were approximately 54%, 23%, 15% and 6%, respectively. Suggested focus CDU and liquid cooling system related names: Shenzhen Envicool Technology, Guangdong Shenling Environmental Systems, Guangzhou Goaland Energy Conservation Tech Cold plate and liquid cooling piping component related names: JinFu Technology, Jiangsu Wuyang Automation Control Technology, Shandong Golden Empire Precision Machinery Technology, Shenzhen hongfuhan Technology, YD Electronic Technology, ShenZhen QiangRui Precision Technology, Jiangxi First Hydraulic Heat dissipation materials and supporting equipment related names: Jones Tech Plc, Hongfucheng, Guangdong Suqun New Material, HOSTAR Risk warnings: data center construction progress falling short of expectations; AI server and liquid cooling rack shipments falling short of expectations; liquid cooling technology application progress falling short of expectations; intensifying industry competition and product price declines; changes in supply chain landscape; geopolitical and policy disruptions; risk of untimely information updates.