Mitsubishi Electric launched a new Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) at Data Centre World, which took place on 4 and 5 March at the Excel in London.
The company stated that it is used the exhibition to launch the ME-CDU, which acts as an interface between liquid cooling servers and systems that reuse heat.
It is available in a single compact module to provide a seamless integration with hybrid cooling applications and heat reuse or rejection systems, Mitsubishi Electric said. The unit helps ensure a continuous operation of the white space in data centres, it added. The product has joined the company’s range of chillers, heat pumps, fan walls, CRACs and CRAHs.
Shahid Rahman, EMEA Data Centre strategic account lead for Mitsubishi Electric, said: “The move from air-cooled systems to predominantly liquid-cooled solutions allows for greater heat capture and re-use, and this is where cany data centre operators are realising that there is the potential for a new revenue stream from feeding into local heat networks around the data centre.
“We are seeing a rapid acceleration in the AI landscape and the amount of heat generated from data centres is going to grow exponentially, so we need to make it easier to reuse that otherwise wasted heat.
“Air-cooled systems will remain vital for full environmental control of a data centre, but we are going to see liquid cooling solutions become the gold standard. The increased use of GPUs means even more heat creation, and this can now be turned into a sellable asset.”
The company stated that the unit is designed to operate seamlessly within hybrid cooling architectures. It provides direct thermal extraction from the most demanding components, it noted.
Mitsubishi Electric added that its air based systems, such as the MEWALL or w-MEXT-XL, manage residual loads and environmental conditions to ensure optimal energy performance across the entire facility.
The ME-CDU offers capacities from 750kW to 1.2MW. It operates nominally with a Technology Cooling System (TCS) at 34C / 24C and a Facility Water System (FWS) at 20C / 30C.
The unit features a dual hydraulic circuit separated by a plate heat exchanger. The primary circuit incorporates a two way valve and 500 micron filtration, while the secondary circuit includes N+1 redundant pumps, 25 micron fine filtration, redundant temperature and pressure sensors and an automatic refill tank to maintain stable pressure even in the presence of micro leaks. The unit’s hydraulic structure is built using 304/316 stainless steel piping and connections.
Mitsubishi Electric noted that the ME-CDU includes advanced controls with touch screen interface and energy monitoring and utilises efficient operation variable speed hydronic pumps in redundant configuration. It also comes with enhanced control capabilities, including water conductivity monitoring, pH and hardness sensing, all combined with a newly designed HMI developed specifically for CDU applications.
Shahid added: “At Mitsubishi Electric, we have a wide range of products all engineered to enable data centres targeting AI and next generation workloads to achieve operational continuity, energy optimisation and future proof scalability.
“We believe that the result is a complete and coordinated hybrid cooling system capable of supporting the continuous evolution towards higher densities and increasingly demanding thermal requirements.”