How Long Can Single-Phase Go? The Liquid Lab also makes clear that CoolIT is not treating today’s architecture as permanent. The company’s R&D operation includes CNC machining, 3D printing, skiving equipment and friction stir welding, allowing engineers to move quickly from CAD designs to physical prototypes. Some work is aimed several processor generations ahead. CoolIT is also experimenting with two-phase thermal technologies. That does not mean the company expects two-phase cooling to displace single-phase DLC wholesale. Robison sees the technologies as potentially complementary. Two-phase techniques can be particularly effective for moving heat from localized areas, using approaches such as vapor chambers and heat pipes. But operating an entire data center cooling loop through repeated phase changes introduces another set of system-engineering challenges. CoolIT’s position is that single-phase cooling still has significant room to advance through better geometries, flow management and system design, while two-phase technologies may emerge where they provide a specific thermal advantage. That is a more useful way to think about the cooling transition than searching for a single architecture that wins outright. AI servers are becoming collections of thermal problems rather than a single thermal problem. Processors, memory, networking and storage may ultimately require different cooling approaches even within the same system. The thermal architecture is likely to become more diverse as density rises. Cooling Becomes Infrastructure Walking through the CoolIT campus in Calgary, the most striking feature was not any single cold plate, manifold or CDU. It was the amount of infrastructure now required to develop and validate the cooling infrastructure itself. A cold plate begins as a carefully engineered flow path measured in millimeters. Several steps later, that component has become part of a megawatt-scale thermal system involving pumps, controls, manifolds, piping, facility water and field technicians. And before that system reaches a data center,

When a global capability center (GCC) underdelivers, the diagnosis is usually people: wrong hires, wrong scope, not enough seniority. It’s rarely the honest answer. More often the center was wired like a branch office and asked to behave like a headquarters. The GCC has evolved from an offshore cost play to a strategic extension of HQ, owning engineering, product, and, increasingly, the AI build. This is no longer solely for the Fortune 500. Leaner centers of 50–200 people, as well as ‘GCC-as-a-service’ and managed models, put it within reach of many US midmarket companies. Demand for AI is accelerating this trend further. India alone now has more than 2,000 GCCs, generating $98.4 billion in revenue in the fiscal year 2026. “A GCC is never about cost effectiveness, it’s about tapping the best talent to take enterprises to the next technological orbit. The GCC model is shifting to intellectual arbitrage,” says Murali Krishnan, AVP & Head of Business – Enterprise Network at Tata Communications. With lower barriers to entry, midmarket companies are looking to tap into this opportunity. However, this size of business tends to carry a domestic, branch-office playbook into a GCC and wire it accordingly. While that network was good enough for a branch office, it actively limits what a GCC can do and can limit their return on investment. Midmarket companies looking to tap into this opportunity face a structural mismatch. Existing networks connect offices to a data center inside one country, with bandwidth sized accordingly. A GCC introduces AI workloads across several clouds and two continents, and the branch office network reaches its design limits. What AI-driven workflows demand from the network The growth in GCCs, alongside the rapid adoption of AI, has increased strain on the network, driving demand for high-performance connectivity across geographies. Model training, data-pipeline engineering,

Google announced its Project Suncatcher space-based data center plan last November. The goal is to take advantage of the unlimited sunlight of space and to minimize the impact of data centers here on Earth. Next week, the first satellite is going up on the SpaceX Transporter-18 mission, Google announced yesterday. The prototype satellite will test how Google’s AI chips—its Tensor Processing Units—perform in space, says Travis Beals, Google’s Senior Director, Paradigms of Intelligence, in the announcement. Google has already conducted some testing here on Earth. The TPU chips were able to handle the level of vibration and acceleration that they would see during the launch, and be able to survive a bigger radiation dose than they would receive during a five-year space mission. In addition, the team has tested a cooling system—a combination of heat pipes and radiators—in a thermal vacuum chamber that simulates space.

September has offered one of the clearest pictures yet of what the frontier AI race looks like when translated from models and tokens into physical infrastructure. Anthropic has moved aggressively to lock down dedicated compute in the United States while establishing its first major data center foothold in Australia. OpenAI, meanwhile, has expanded into Malaysia through Nvidia-backed Firmus as the financing behind its much larger infrastructure ambitions continues to grow more complicated. All in all, the developments suggest that competition between the leading AI labs is entering another phase. Securing GPUs remains essential, but the harder problem is increasingly assembling the entire chain around them: land, power, cooling, networks, project finance and counterparties capable of delivering capacity measured in hundreds of megawatts — and increasingly gigawatts. That distinction is important for the data center industry. The AI infrastructure story is no longer simply about projected demand. It is increasingly about which commitments can actually become operating megawatts. Anthropic’s $45 Billion Bet Gets More Concrete The most revealing new detail came not from Anthropic itself, but from Nscale. The Nvidia-backed AI infrastructure provider filed for a U.S. initial public offering on Sept. 18, providing new financial and technical detail around a massive compute agreement first reported in August. Nscale’s SEC filing says it entered four GPU services agreements with Anthropic on Aug. 25 that could generate approximately $44.6 billion in aggregate payments. The agreements call for Nscale to provide Anthropic with dedicated infrastructure built around Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72 systems at the company’s planned Monarch Compute Campus in Mason County, West Virginia. The deployments are structured in four tranches with multiyear service terms. Reuters previously reported the agreement at roughly $45 billion over six years, covering about 460 MW of compute capacity at Monarch. (The agreement follows Anthropic’s $19 billion, 401-MW

Amazon has struck a long-term supply agreement with Generac for backup generators supporting its data center buildout, tying one of the cloud industry’s largest infrastructure programs to a manufacturer that has been rapidly expanding into the hyperscale power market. Under the agreement disclosed in a Sept. 16 regulatory filing, Generac expects initial deliveries to Amazon totaling approximately $2.4 billion during 2027 and 2028. The commercial relationship could ultimately involve as much as $8 billion in qualifying generator purchases. The agreement also gives Amazon an equity interest in Generac’s success. Generac issued Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings a warrant to acquire as many as 1.69 million Generac shares at an exercise price of approximately $200.93 per share. About 308,000 shares vested when the agreement was signed, with additional tranches vesting as Amazon’s purchases increase. The warrant remains exercisable through September 2033. The distinction is important: the frequently cited $8 billion figure represents potential cumulative payments by Amazon for backup power generators, rather than an $8 billion equity investment. The maximum warrant covers roughly $340 million of Generac stock at the stated exercise price. CNBC first highlighted the equity component of the transaction, reporting that Generac shares surged more than 40% in extended trading following disclosure of the agreement. The shares ultimately gained about 18% during the following regular trading session. Generac Was Already Scaling for the Data Center Market For the data center industry, however, the more consequential part of the transaction may be the size and duration of Amazon’s equipment commitment. Generac has spent much of the past two years positioning itself as an alternative large-megawatt generator supplier as AI infrastructure development puts pressure on established power-equipment supply chains. DCF previously examined Generac’s push into hyperscale backup power, including its effort to shorten generator lead times and support campuses requiring hundreds

Matt Vincent is Editor in Chief of Data Center Frontier, where he leads editorial strategy and coverage focused on the infrastructure powering cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the digital economy. A veteran B2B technology journalist with more than two decades of experience, Vincent specializes in the intersection of data centers, power, cooling, and emerging AI-era infrastructure. Since assuming the EIC role in 2023, he has helped guide Data Center Frontier’s coverage of the industry’s transition into the gigawatt-scale AI era, with a focus on hyperscale development, behind-the-meter power strategies, liquid cooling architectures, and the evolving energy demands of high-density compute, while working closely with the Digital Infrastructure Group at Endeavor Business Media to expand the brand’s analytical and multimedia footprint. Vincent also hosts The Data Center Frontier Show podcast, where he interviews industry leaders across hyperscale, colocation, utilities, and the data center supply chain to examine the technologies and business models reshaping digital infrastructure. Since its inception he serves as Head of Content for the Data Center Frontier Trends Summit. Before becoming Editor in Chief, he served in multiple senior editorial roles across Endeavor Business Media’s digital infrastructure portfolio, with coverage spanning data centers and hyperscale infrastructure, structured cabling and networking, telecom and datacom, IP physical security, and wireless and Pro AV markets. He began his career in 2005 within PennWell’s Advanced Technology Division and later held senior editorial positions supporting brands such as Cabling Installation & Maintenance, Lightwave Online, Broadband Technology Report, and Smart Buildings Technology. Vincent is a frequent moderator, interviewer, and keynote speaker at industry events including the HPC Forum, where he delivers forward-looking analysis on how AI and high-performance computing are reshaping digital infrastructure. He graduated with honors from Indiana University Bloomington with a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing and lives in southern New Hampshire with