The Zhitong Finance App learned that Guosheng Securities released a research report saying that the AIDC high power density scenario has spawned a liquid cooling system as a supporting requirement. Relying on the same technology and manufacturing synergy, domestic parts companies have expanded from thermal management to liquid cooling in data centers, successfully opening up a new curve of future growth. Component leaders with common technology, system integration and cost reduction capabilities, and global capabilities are expected to become the core beneficiaries of the AI mainstream wave.
Guosheng Securities's main views are as follows:
Multiple factors drive liquid cooling to become the standard for high-density computing power, and the industry ushered in an upward inflection point in both scale and penetration
As the TDP of Nvidia's next-generation chips continues to rise and the power consumption of single cabinets continues to break through, traditional air cooling can no longer meet existing needs, and the trend of liquid cooling replacement is clear. Liquid cooling includes three types of technical routes: cold plate type, immersion type, and spray type. Among them, cold plate type is currently mainstream due to easy operation and maintenance and better comprehensive TCO. According to industry world estimates, the global liquid cooling data center market is 8.73 billion US dollars in 2025, and is expected to reach 28.65 billion US dollars in 2030, and the CAGR is 26.8%; domestic liquid cooling servers are growing more elastic. According to IDC and China Business Research Institute, the market size will reach 17.272 billion yuan in 2024, and is expected to reach 25.7 billion yuan in 2026. As overseas cloud vendors and domestic intelligent computing projects accelerate the implementation of liquid cooling, the share of superimposed AI inference computing power continues to increase. According to TrendForce forecasts, the domestic penetration rate of liquid cooled servers is expected to increase from 20% in 2025 to 82% in 2030.
The value of liquid cooling systems is concentrated on components such as cold plates, quick couplings, manifolds, CDUs, etc., and has formed a competitive pattern where Taiwanese manufacturers are the main players and multiple actors participate
Together, the four core components account for more than 90% of the cost of liquid cooling hardware. Cold plates are responsible for chip heat transfer, and microchannel processing technology and zero liquid leakage requirements are core barriers; quick connectors achieve drip-free insertion and unplugging under pressure, zero leakage disconnection, high flow and low pressure drop are core performance requirements; manifolds are responsible for uniform distribution of coolant, and flow balance control is the main design difficulty; CDU is the center of heat transfer and system regulation, and BOM accounts for about 30%-40%, and the value ratio of high-power cabinets has further increased after iteration. At the supply level, Taiwanese temperature control manufacturers are deeply tied to the Nvidia MGX cabinet ecosystem. Overseas companies have accumulated deep technology in the field of quick connectors and CDU, and domestic component manufacturers are gradually entering the overseas supply chain system.
Global demand for liquid cooling is concentrated in the North American market, and domestic manufacturers are gradually increasing their voice in the industry
The global liquid cooling supply chain is diversifying, and the overall concentration of the industry is medium. A large number of cross-border enterprises and domestic manufacturers have entered the market one after another; Taiwanese manufacturers have taken the main share of liquid cooling orders from the Nvidia platform, leading the supply of large liquid cooling components. Segmented components such as water dividers, UQD quick couplings, and plate heat exchangers have become the entry direction for domestic manufacturers: while promoting component certification, domestic companies rely on precision processing capabilities to accept supporting orders, and local manufacturers are relying on component tracks to participate in the division of labor in the global liquid cooling supply chain.
Risk warning: AI industry development falls short of expectations; domestic supplier and customer development falls short of expectations; risk of fluctuations in raw material prices; risk of exchange rate fluctuations, risk of geopolitical changes.