Dive Brief:
- Modine acquired TMG Core’s intellectual property and specific assets to advance its global data center products and services, according to a Jan. 2 release.
- Modine’s investment in liquid immersion cooling technology is part of its strategy to expand its footprint in the global data center market and seize opportunities that will help the company achieve its long-term growth targets, Modine CEO and President Neil Brinker said in the release.
- The investment positions Modine to capture share in a data center liquid cooling market, which analysts forecast will reach $7.8 billion by 2028, the company said in the release.
Dive Insight:
The data center market continues to grow rapidly as artificial intelligence and IoT-connected devices boost demand for processing, driving an all-time high of 2,287.6 megawatts — a 25% year-over-year increase — under construction in primary markets, according to CBRE’s most recent H1 2023 North America Data Center Trends report. Many AI startups are seeking requirements between five and 25 megawatts, the report noted.
That processing demand has led overall vacancy rates for primary markets to remain near record lows at 3.3%. Most markets are also grappling with energy constraints, creating conflicts for facilities managers as they struggle to balance ESG-driven emissions reductions, supply chain delays, power shortages and volatility in energy costs, CBRE said.
TMG Core is a specialist in single- and two-phase liquid immersion cooling technologies for data centers with high-density computing requirements, which involves submerging servers in tanks filled with fluid to dissipate the heat generated by IT loads.
By utilizing liquid immersion cooling, Modine says it can provide data center operators with increased computing density in a sealed environment that supports reduced energy and water consumption. Modine notes that the process also provides the potential for heat reclaim and serves edge data center applications where data processing must be closer to a source to reduce latency.
The company’s purchase of TMG Core’s assets will help build on its Airedale brand across the “thermal chain,” bolstering efforts to maximize processing efficiency through mission-critical IT applications and comply with increasingly stringent emissions and energy efficiency requirements, Modine Climate Solutions’ president, Eric McGinnis said in the release.
The acquisition follows a boost in data center sales for Modine, resulting from robust demand from hyperscale and colocation customers, which drove strong revenue growth and offset a drop in heat transfer, HVAC and refrigeration sales, according to the firm’s Q2 2024 earnings report. Data center sales more than doubled year over year to $79 million, Brinker said in a November 2023 release.
In its earnings presentation, the company also noted that it is designing and developing a cooling distribution unit for liquid cooling in data centers, with the unit supplying coolant for heat exchangers, direct-to-chip and immersion cooling systems to effectively manage heat loads.
