SK Lubricants invests $25 mn in US liquid immersion cooling firm

SK Lubricants Co., the world’s largest lube base oil supplier, invested $25 million in a US liquid immersion cooling solutions provider for data centers to develop its liquid-based thermal management business as a future growth engine.

Liquid immersion cooling solutions deliver high cooling efficiency to data center servers by immersing them in a high-performance non-conductive coolant. When compared with conventional chilled air-cooling, liquid immersion cooling can lower total data center power usage by 30% by eliminating most of the energy used for cooling, dramatically reducing power use and carbon emissions.

SK Lubricants said on Wednesday it made an equity investment in Green Revolution Cooling Inc. (GRC) without further details such as how many shares it bought.

“As AI, VR and self-driving industries are gaining traction, the high-density data center market is expected to grow dramatically,” said SK Lubricants CEO Cha Gyu-tak, referring to artificial intelligence and virtual reality.

“I believe this equity investment in GRC will maximize cooperation between the two companies and help us be the first mover in the market while facilitating our growth as a liquid-based thermal management solution provider,” Cha said in a statement.

The liquid immersion cooling market is expected to grow rapidly because lower power use leads to an approximately 20% reduction in investment and operating costs compared to air cooling, according to SK Lubricants.

SK Lubricants and GRC will jointly develop high-grade single-phase immersion coolants and liquid immersion cooling systems for data centers while cooperating on the standardization and commercialization of the systems.

The lube-making unit of South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate SK Group will seek further options to make the business of liquid immersion for thermal management more tangible.

Jongwoo Cheon edited this story.