Molex backs CAEPlus cooling tech for AI data centres

Molex has made a strategic investment in cooling technology start-up CAEPlus, focused on active liquid cooling for data centres handling AI and high-performance computing workloads.

The deal gives Molex a stake in the early-stage company, which is developing a system called BoundaryCool to manage rising heat loads in servers using advanced processors. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Demand for more intensive AI and high-performance computing has increased scrutiny of how operators remove heat from chips and surrounding systems. As processors generate more heat, conventional cooling methods are coming under growing pressure, particularly in dense data centre environments.

The investment is part of Molex's broader data centre thermal management strategy and is intended to accelerate development and validation of the CAEPlus platform.

BoundaryCool is a compact active cooling architecture designed to address next-generation GPU and ASIC thermal challenges. The platform is intended to improve heat transfer in liquid-cooled systems while remaining compatible with existing data centre architectures.

Licensing rights

The agreement also gives Molex exclusive licensing rights to apply CAEPlus technology to its portfolio of pluggable I/O products. That suggests the company sees the technology as relevant not only to server chip cooling, but also to the thermal demands of data centre interconnect hardware.

Thermal management has become a growing investment focus across the data centre supply chain as operators prepare for heavier AI workloads. Liquid cooling is attracting more interest because air-based systems can struggle to keep pace with higher rack densities and more power-hungry processors.

Against that backdrop, Molex is using the deal to strengthen its position in data centre infrastructure beyond connectivity. The company serves customers across sectors including data centres, cloud, telecommunications, transport, industrial automation and healthcare, and operates in more than 40 countries.

Jairo Guerrero, Vice President and General Manager, Copper Solutions Business, Molex, outlined the company's view of the market shift.

"Advanced thermal management is becoming a critical enabler for the next wave of compute performance," said Jairo Guerrero, Vice President and General Manager, Copper Solutions Business, Molex.

"Our strategic investment in CAEPlus reflects Molex's commitment to supporting innovations in liquid cooling while working with emerging technology leaders to help customers address rapidly evolving AI and compute-intensive data centre requirements," said Guerrero.

CAEPlus is using the seed funding to support its product roadmap and commercialisation efforts. For a young company in a specialist hardware field, backing from an established supplier can provide both funding and engineering support as it works to refine and scale its technology.

Start-up backing

The start-up said Molex's involvement brings technical knowledge as well as capital. That could be significant in a market where new cooling systems must prove they can integrate with existing data centre designs and withstand operational demands over time.

Milad Bashirzadeh, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CAEPlus, described the problem the company is trying to address.

"CAEPlus was founded to address the rapid pace of change in data centre cooling requirements by enabling an entirely new class of active liquid cooling solutions," said Milad Bashirzadeh, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CAEPlus.

"In addition to its investment, Molex brings deep engineering expertise and a strong track record of helping scale innovative technologies. We are excited to work together to advance our proprietary cooling technology and meet unrelenting industry requirements for higher levels of performance and efficiency," said Bashirzadeh.

Molex said adding CAEPlus technology to its thermal management offering broadens the range of systems it can offer data centre customers with demanding compute requirements. The move underlines how suppliers to the AI infrastructure market are expanding beyond their traditional product lines into adjacent technologies tied to power, heat and system design.

AI infrastructure

As AI deployment continues to raise rack power levels, cooling technology has become a strategic concern for equipment makers and data centre operators alike. Molex now holds both an investment stake in CAEPlus and exclusive rights to use the company's technology in its pluggable I/O portfolio.