{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Additive Snack","title":"AI Is Getting Hot: Can Additive Manufacturing Help Cool It Down?","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2986,"description":"Host Fabian Alefeld interviews Professor PS Lee, Head of National University of Singapore Mechanical Engineering & Program Director of STDCT, and founder of CoolestDC, about heat as a key constraint in AI infrastructure as data centers shift from CPU-heavy to GPU-dense systems with higher power density, hotspots, and bursty workloads. Lee explains why cooling must be treated as an integrated “chip to grid” system spanning cold plates, racks, CDUs, piping, controls, and operations, and discusses single-phase versus two-phase direct-to-chip liquid cooling and the added need for condensation in closed loops.  \nProfessor Lee describes how additive manufacturing (AM) enables complex fin structures and unibody cold plates that reduce leakage risk, lower junction temperatures (~10°C), cut pumping power (60–70%+), and reduce material use, while requiring TCO evaluation. At NUS’s live testbed (22 liquid-cooled racks, ~500 kW), AM cold plates are being deployed and show promising thermal, power, and compute-performance improvements; future work includes two-phase cooling and broader system-level heat rejection, warm-water operation, and waste-heat reuse, plus a discussion of challenges and potential AM roles in space-based data centers. \n02:13 Meet Professor Lee \n05:26 Chip To Grid Cooling \n10:22 Liquid Cooling Maturity \n14:15 Two Phase Explained \n18:12 Cold Plate Tradeoffs \n20:40 AM Unibody Cold Plates \n24:41 Benchmarking AM Gains \n30:18 AM For CDUs \n34:13 Inside STDC Testbed \n38:09 Reliability And Leakage \n39:00 Next Phase Roadmap \n42:31 Orbital Data Centers","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/27ZYLdyZ8MHWZlxUWh87sIQyB5ttPhwcP3_CmUBDsv0/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzE2NDk0LzE3MDU5/NDgwMjItYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}