Cooperating to solve liquid cooling performance and resilience demands of AI data centers
October 13, 2025 – Today, the Open Compute Project Foundation (OCP), the nonprofit international organization bringing at-scale innovations and hyperscale best practices to all, and ASHRAE, an international society of heating, refrigerating and air-conditioning professionals, announce a new alliance focused on data center liquid cooling technology standards and best practices. The alliance was propelled by individuals that span both organizations because of the shared scope of data center cooling environments and sustainability, where at ASHRAE, this is particularly its Technical Committee 9.9 (TC 9.9), “Mission Critical Facilities, Data Centers, Technology Spaces and Electronic Equipment.”
As the power and thermal management requirements of AI systems reshape data center IT equipment and the facilities that house it, the OCP Community’s innovative open data center specifications and ASHRAE’s cooling standards intersect in areas from the facilities—technology cooling system (TCS) and facility water system (FWS) coolant loops—to the IT equipment—direct-to-chip or immersion cooling—and various interconnecting technologies and intermediate systems like in-row or in-rack coolant distribution units (CDUs). This chain of cooling technologies has considerations in common between OCP and ASHRAE TC 9.9, such as impact on power usage effectiveness (PUE) and sustainability.
As the 2025 OCP Global Summit’s cooling- and facility-focused breakout tracks will renew, past collaborative efforts include joint roadmaps for liquid cooling adoption, as highlighted in last year’s OCP Global Summit session titled “OCP Cooling Environments and ASHRAE TC 9.9 Roadmap for the Future Collaboration,” featuring speakers from NVIDIA, BP/Castrol, AEI, and Iceotope. The roadmap emphasizes harmonizing ASHRAE standards and OCP Approved Specifications for facility readiness, integrating liquid loops into existing data centers, and addressing high-density cooling needs.
OCP’s cooling-focused Community is quickly progressing to shape and address high-density IT racks for AI and the power that feeds them. Its chief OCP Project areas consist of Cooling Environments, Cold Plate, Immersion, CDU, Door Heat Exchanger, TCS, Data Center Facilities, and Sustainability. OCP’s Open Systems for AI strategic initiative acts as a point of central coordination among these groups themselves and within the larger scope of the physical data center infrastructure. The common theme in the work product is meeting the challenge of AI factories’ increasing heat from the high power transmission and conversion infrastructure as well as IT components’ thermal design power (TDP). In solving these challenges, OCP contribution documents like specifications and white papers frequently reference ASHRAE’s thermal guidelines like fluid velocities and temperatures, liquid cooling classes, and infrastructure design types. ASHRAE may re-publish guidelines or create standards from OCP contributions as another avenue of collaboration in the new alliance.
“Most people don’t realize the size of the OCP’s cooling-focused community. It is composed of thousands of engineers and professionals across many OCP Projects. OCP’s cooling-focused educational webinars and Summit breakout tracks also attract massive community audiences. All of these people know ASHRAE and are often members. The OCP Community has also long since spoken the same language found in ASHRAE TC9.9’s Datacom Encyclopedia, so I’m pleased to formalize our alliance off the back of years of alignment,” said James Kelly, VP Market Intelligence and Innovation at the OCP Foundation.
About the Open Compute Project Foundation
The Open Compute Project (OCP) brings at-scale innovations and hyperscaler best practices to all, spanning technology domains from the data center to the edge, and the technology stack from silicon, to systems, to site facilities and services. The international OCP Community is made up of organizations and people from hyperscale, neocloud, and cloud data center operators, communications providers, colocation providers, diverse enterprises, and technology vendors. With the tenets of openness, impact, efficiency, scale and sustainability, the OCP engages and educates thousands of engineers every year. Across many projects and initiatives the OCP Foundation and Community are meeting the market today and shaping the future. Learn more at: www.opencompute.org.
About ASHRAE
ASHRAE is an international society of more than 50,000 heating, refrigerating and air-conditioning professionals from over 132 nations dedicated to serving humanity and promoting a sustainable world.
Founded in 1894, ASHRAE is an industry leader in research, standards writing, publishing, certification and continuing education, ASHRAE its members are dedicated to promoting a healthy and sustainable built environment for all, through strategic partnerships with organizations in the HVAC&R community and across related industries.
The Society is showcasing integrated building solutions and sustainability in action through the opening of the ASHRAE Global Headquarters building in metro-Atlanta, Georgia.