The Future of Liquid Cooling

The Future of Liquid Cooling

From Data Center Richness by Rich Miller

May 27, 2026 · 26 min

About this episode

Rich Miller interviews Rich Whitmore about the future of liquid cooling in data centers and its implications for AI workloads.

Few people know liquid cooling as well as Rich Whitmore. He is the CEO of Motivair by Schneider Electric, which has cooled the world's most powerful supercomputers. After years of working with the HPC and data center communities, Motivair was acquired last year by global equipment giant Schneider Electric to prepare for surging adoption of liquid cooling for AI workloads. The rise of AI and extreme rack density was a key focus at the recent Schneider Electirc Innovation Summit in Buffalo, N.Y., where I sat down with Rich for a discussion of where liquid cooling has been and where it's going from here. Here's a guide to our discussion with Rich Whitmore: 00:00 - The Trajectory of Liquid Cooling 02:00 - Motivair's History and Rich Whitmore's Data Center Journey 03:45 - The Rise of High-Density Cooling 06:20 - The Motivair "Cooling Door" 08:45 - The Latest Trends in Coolant DIstribution Units (CDUs) 12:45 - CDU Sizing in the Hyperscale Age 15:35 - Managing Cooling for Dynamic AI Workloads 17:10 - The Role of Software in Holistic Cooling 20:35 - Grappling With the Megawatt Rack 22:15 - The Road Ahead - What's Next for Motivair by Schneider…

People in this episode

Host: Rich Miller

Guest: Rich Whitmore

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Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Motivair, Schneider Electric

Places: Buffalo, N.Y.

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