Liquid Cooling

Liquid cooling pricing per kW, why no secondary market exists yet, ASHRAE W-class limits, and the four deals that took the supply base in 18 months.

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Liquid cooling pricing per kW, why no secondary market exists yet, ASHRAE W-class limits, and the four deals that took the supply base in 18 months.

Liquid Cooling Models (4)

Every model below has a specification dossier with verified ratings, pricing context, and lead-time intelligence.

Which Liquid Cooling Topology Do You Need

Whole-rack density with no white space to condition

Single-phase immersion submerges complete servers in a dielectric fluid, removing rack-level airflow from the design and allowing chiller-free operation on warm water. GRC's containerized ICEtank documents 20 ft and 40 ft ISO builds with four and eight 42U immersion racks, published capacities of 100-200 kW and 200-400 kW depending on datasheet revision, 95 F (35 C) supply water, and a stated PUE range of 1.03 to 1.09 with 2N coolant pumps. GRC ICEtank immersion dossier has the verified specifications.

Retrofitting an existing air-cooled hall to direct-to-chip

Cold plates on the CPU and GPU packages capture the majority of rack heat while the room keeps its air path for the balance, which is why direct liquid cooling is the usual retrofit route. CoolIT's single-phase DCLC platform documents water/PG25 secondary loops at roughly 1.2 LPM/kW, a 500 kW CDU module in 11U scalable to 2 MW in a 48U rack, and a 180 kW liquid-to-air unit that requires no facility water. CoolIT DCLC dossier has the verified specifications.

Separating facility water from the rack loop at hall scale

The coolant distribution unit is the hydraulic boundary: it isolates the facility water system from the technology cooling loop through a heat exchanger and controls secondary flow, pressure, and fluid quality. The Vertiv Liebert XDU line documents 1,368 kW at a 4 C approach on ASHRAE W3 32 C facility water with three pumps and three inverters, down to a 450 kW dual-pump unit. Vertiv Liebert XDU CDU dossier has the verified specifications.

1,500 W-class processors, and no water permitted in the rack

Two-phase direct-on-chip cooling boils a dielectric fluid at the die and condenses it in an in-rack heat rejection unit, so nothing conductive circulates through the IT space. ZutaCore HyperCool documents Opteon SF33 (R-1233zd) with a boiling range near 18-50 C, cold plates for 1,500 W-plus processors, 6U heat rejection units up to 100 kW on water and 20 kW on air, and roughly 0.3 L/min per 1,000 W of load. ZutaCore HyperCool dossier has the verified specifications.

Availability and Secondary Market

Liquid cooling is a young installed base, so the secondary market behaves differently from transformers or switchgear. Coolant distribution units and containerized immersion modules are the two liquid-cooling assets that resell cleanly, because both are standardized, self-contained, and portable between sites. Cold plates and rack manifolds are matched to a specific server and socket, so they rarely trade independently of the servers they were built for. SecondWatt holds no stock and sets no prices: state the capacity, approach temperature, and topology you need and the request is routed to sellers holding matching equipment. List equipment you hold.

Pricing Tiers

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