Exploring thermal management solutions for modern industries

As chip power consumption surpasses the kilowatt level, as cars transition from mechanical to electric propulsion, and as mobile phones begin to incorporate built-in fans to manage the heat generated by large AI models, thermal management has evolved from an engineering detail into a core issue that every industry must address. In this thermal management revolution, the cooling fan industry is undergoing an unprecedented transformation—it has not been phased out, but is instead undergoing a metamorphosis.

A Continuously Expanding Market

Data Centres and AI: Re-evaluating the Value of Fans

AI servers are pushing data centre thermal density to its limits. Power per rack has soared from 15–20 kW in the past to 60–100 kW, and traditional air cooling is no longer able to cope effectively. As a result, the adoption rate of liquid cooling has risen sharply—from just 14 per cent in 2024 to a projected 47 per cent by 2026.
However, a common misconception is that liquid cooling will replace fans. In fact, unless immersion cooling solutions are adopted, mainstream direct-to-chip liquid cooling still requires water-cooled heat exchangers paired with high-performance fans to dissipate heat. Every component of a liquid cooling system—from the cooling distribution units and the ‘sidecar’ heat exchangers on the cabinet sides to the external heat dissipation via cooling towers—has a strong demand for high-static-pressure, large-sized fans.
More crucially, the technical barriers for fans specifically designed for AI servers far exceed those for standard fans. Take the dual-motor counter-rotating design as an example: two sets of blades rotate in opposite directions to generate extremely high static pressure, whilst simultaneously requiring vibration to be controlled to the micrometre level to avoid affecting the read/write performance of precision hard drives. This drives the unit price of high-end AI server fans to more than ten times that of traditional products. By 2025, fan modules for liquid-cooling-assisted cooling systems accounted for 19 per cent of total annual shipments, and it is projected that the share of specialised fan modules will rise from less than 6 per cent to 21 per cent by 2030.
An often-overlooked hidden challenge is that liquid cooling provides localised heat dissipation. When the system’s fan array is significantly reduced, ‘forgotten components’ such as memory, SSDs and optical modules are left in a harsh thermal environment characterised by stagnant air. As temperatures approach thresholds, this triggers throttling; when these effects accumulate at the system level, they ultimately lead to reduced data centre throughput and rising operational costs. This implies that data centres’ demand for precise micro-cooling solutions has, in fact, increased.

Consumer Electronics and Industry: Pushing the Boundaries of Thermal Management

Cooling fans are breaking through the boundaries of traditional applications. In the consumer electronics sector, OPPO has already integrated ultra-thin fans into non-gaming models, whilst Honor has announced that its entire flagship series will be equipped with fans, signalling that active cooling technology is becoming standard on high-performance devices. More cutting-edge MEMS fan technology is bringing cooling components down to the chip level – AAC Technologies’ piezoelectric MEMS fan is as thin as 1 mm and can achieve an airflow of 3 L/min at a power consumption of 100 mW. Mass production is expected to commence in 2027, and the technology is set to be widely adopted in AI-enabled smartphones and XR devices.
Applications in industrial settings are also expanding. Emerging sectors such as energy storage equipment and hydrogen fuel cells are creating a new growth driver for corrosion-resistant, long-life fans. Tighter energy efficiency regulations are also driving technological upgrades—new EU regulations due to come into force in 2028 require industrial fans to meet the IE4 energy efficiency standard, prompting companies to accelerate the adoption of high-efficiency technologies such as magnetic levitation bearings.