U.S. Data Center Cooling Market - Industry Outlook and Forecast 2021-2026

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

The U.S. data center cooling market size to cross USD 4 billion, growing at a CAGR of over 3% during the forecast period. The data center investors are increasingly investing in liquid immersion and direct-to-chip cooling solutions. The importance of edge data centers has been aided by the emergence of 5G network worldwide, and the US is among the earliest adopters of the technology. Many operators in the US such as EdgePresence, EdgeMicro, and American Towers have started investing in these centers. In 2020, Switch partnered with Dell and FedEx to deploy edge data center facilities in the US. DataBank, a colocation service provider, is investing around $30 million in EdgePresence, an edge data center provider in the US, to collocate their customer workloads to edge centers to reduce latency in their services.

Most edge data centers use direct expansion (DX) systems for cooling. Although these systems have several benefits such as low CAPEX and low maintenance, they suffer from some disadvantages, including low efficiency, voluminous, and limited flexibility for expansion. Alternative solutions such as chilled water distributed systems, free cooling where possible, or high-density liquid cooling can be considered, which offer high efficiency. The market is expected to witness significant R&D investments by vendors to innovate solutions targeting edge data centers during the forecast period.

In the US data center, the demand for data center services remained largely unaffected. In Q1 2020, the U.S. data center market experienced considerable growth in Northern Virginia, Dallas, Silicon Valley, Chicago, Phoenix, and Atlanta. The data center market received significant investments in Northern Virginia especially, during the COVID-19 period. Cooling vendors have taken several measures to reduce disruption to the supply chain, enabling strong growth of the US market in 2020.

 SNIPPETS

• The growth in rack power densities is to lead the development of innovative solutions in the U.S.data center cooling market.
• The use of free cooling techniques will continue to boost the adoption of evaporative coolers, free chillers, air-side economizers, and water-side economizers in the US.
• Majority of data centers are built with PUE of less 1.3 to reduce power consumption through adoption of efficient solutions.
• The adoption of liquid immersion cooling solutions is expected to grow as organizations are increasingly deploying artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads.
• The U.S. data center cooling market is expected to observe a cumulative spend of over $15 billion during the period 2021–2026

U.S. DATA CENTER COOLING MARKET SEGMENTATION

This research report includes a detailed segmentation by:

• Infrastructure (Cooling Systems & Other Infrastructure)
• Systems
• Technique
• Tier Standards 
• Geography 

INSIGHTS BY INFRASTRUCTURE

In terms of cooling, the U.S. data center market by investment is expected to be 15–20% of the total data center investments, depending on the facility design and IT load. The operators are looking for efficient solutions to reduce CAPEX and OPEX, conserve data center space, and reduce the power consumption of cooling units. Most modern facilities are being built based on the ASHRAE data center cooling guidelines and the Uptime Institute’s tier standards for redundant design. Metrics such as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), Water-usage Effectiveness (WUE), and Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) are likely to play a major factor in the adoption of efficient systems during the forecast period.

Pump systems, piping units, ductworks, and valves are the other major revenue generators in the other cooling infrastructure segment. The application of other infrastructure depends on the type of technology - air and liquid. The use of chilled water is expected to decline as systems, which use both outside air and water to cool facilities is growing. The use of free cooler systems using evaporative coolers, free chillers, and air/waterside economizers will continue to grow during the forecast period. The redundancy of other infrastructure implementation is likely to be N+N configuration. However, a few data centers are likely to adopt 2N redundancy piping infrastructure for cooling to avoid operational failures. 

INSIGHTS BY SYSTEMS

Data centers in the South Eastern region adopt free-cooling techniques that include chillers with evaporate cooling. Virginia supports up to 5,500 hours of passive free cooling annually, thereby reducing the application of chillers. Alabama and Florida support over 3,500 hours and 3,000 hours, respectively. The data center investment for several solutions across in South Eastern US will include chillers that support free cooling or chillers, cooling towers, and CRAH units.

The Western US is witnessing a high demand for efficient systems among major and regional operators. The development of hyperscale facilities with a power capacity of over 20 MW is expected to influence the U.S. data center cooling market growth. Similarly, the operators in South Western US are adopting solutions that support free cooling. Texas supports up to 3,500 hours of passive-free cooling methods annually, thereby decreasing the usage of chillers. 

INSIGHTS BY TECHNIQUE

Air-based techniques, which include traditional CRACs and free cooler solutions, are gaining momentum over legacy liquid-based solutions. However, the use of chilled water systems is highly prevalent in the U.S. data center cooling market. The operators are mainly using the hybrid system with minimal compressor support during peak summers and free cooler solutions without the need for compressors.

Liquid-based techniques include the use of refrigerant and glycol-based systems. This method is less popular in the US due to the growing concerns over water-consumption by data centers. Water-based systems are likely to gain increased traction among facilities located in tropical climatic conditions. Although the growth of liquid-based techniques is higher, the adoption of chilled water systems is likely to decline over the next few years due to the demand to reduce water consumption. Service operators are constantly installing on-site water tanks, water treatment plants, and recycling plants to reduce water consumption.

INSIGHTS BY TIER STANDARDS

Western US leads in the development of Tier IV data centers, followed by South-Eastern US and South Western US. The majority of data centers in South Eastern US are developed according to Tier III and Tier IV standards, with a minimum cooling redundancy of N+1. However, in Southern Western US several facilities are designed to be Tier III and Tier IV standards, with the cooling redundancy ranging from N+1 to 2N. Over 90 data center projects that are operational or are under construction, fall under Tier III standards. Western and the South-Eastern US lead the region in terms of Tier III projects. The majority of new facilities are designed to be Tier III standards with N+N redundancy. However, they can be reconfigured up to 2N+1 redundancy, with the incorporation of flexible designs. This trend is likely to continue throughout the forecast period, with many operators expected to move to the Tier IV category based on the growth in rack power density and the increasing usage of critical data center applications. In 2020, over 30 facilities in the US were developed according to Tier IV standards. 

INSIGHTS BY GEOGRAPHY

Georgia, and Florida have emerged as the preferred investment destinations in the South Eastern US due to the availability of strong network connectivity and the presence of renewable sources along with tax incentives. In 2020, around 35 new projects were open or under development in the South Eastern US. Virginia is among the largest and leading data center markets in the US. The region attracts significant investment from enterprise and cloud service providers in 2020. The increased construction and expansion of data centers, especially hyperscale facilities, will offer significant opportunities for cooling infrastructure providers. 

 INSIGHTS BY VENDORS

Airedale International Air Conditioning, Rittal Systems, Schneider Electric, STULZ, and Vertiv Group are the key players holding major U.S. data center cooling market share. The U.S. data center cooling market comprises air- and liquid-based systems service providers that provide sufficient cooling solutions. The market will witness high competition due to the increased demand for energy-efficient systems with low carbon emissions. Free cooling system providers offering evaporative coolers and dry coolers along with chillers and CRAC/CRAH units are likely to face competition in regions that support free cooling for more than 5,000 hours.  With the increasing deployment of edge facilities, modular, rack-based, and in-row cooling system providers are likely to face strong competition for offering efficient systems to support edge and micro-edge data center cooling.

The U.S. data center cooling market research report includes in-depth coverage of the industry analysis with revenue and forecast insights for the following segments:

Infrastructure

• Cooling Infrastructure
• Other Infrastructure

Systems

• CRAC & CRAH
• Chiller Units
• Cooling Towers & Dry Coolers
• Economizer & Evaporative Coolers
• Other Units

Technique

• Air-based
• Liquid-based

By Tier Standards 

• Tier I & II
• Tier III
• Tier IV

By Geography

• US
• South Eastern US
• South Western US
• Mid Western US
• North Western US
• Western US