CDU

Direct Liquid Cooling and the Role of Heat Exchangers in CDU Systems

The Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) is one of the most important components of liquid cooling systems in modern data centers. It is responsible for distributing coolant between the servers and the building’s cooling infrastructure, ensuring stable and efficient heat removal from IT equipment. In practice, the CDU controls temperature, flow rate, and pressure of the coolant, allowing optimal operating conditions to be maintained even at very high power densities. In liquid cooling systems, the CDU acts as an intermediary between the server cooling loop and the facility’s technical or chilled water system.

A key component of the CDU is the heat exchanger, which enables the transfer of thermal energy between two circuits without direct mixing of the fluids. This solution increases system safety and improves the reliability of the entire installation. The use of CDUs significantly increases the energy efficiency of data centers, reduces the energy consumption associated with traditional air-based cooling systems, and provides more effective cooling for modern servers used in AI, HPC, and cloud computing environments. As demand for computing power continues to grow, liquid cooling is becoming the new standard, with the CDU playing a critical role in this architecture.