The rapid acceleration of artificial intelligence workloads is not only prompting widespread upgrades across data centers—it's also ushering in a new era of challenges in power delivery and thermal management. As air cooling reaches its physical limits, the industry is turning to liquid cooling, a shift that demands sweeping changes to connector technology.
Liquid cooling is no longer optional—it's becoming the new standard, said Pu Tian Chiang (transliteration), Sales Director for TE Connectivity in Asia-Pacific and Europe. As systems push beyond what air can handle, every component, including connectors, must evolve to withstand harsher thermal and environmental conditions.
Engineering for a liquid-cooled future
Traditional high-speed data transfer is now just the baseline. As liquid cooling systems proliferate, the materials and design of connectors must adapt. Chiang explained that different types of coolants require tailored corrosion resistance strategies, ranging from nickel or gold plating to the use of advanced materials such as LCP, which offer high chemical resistance and structural stability.
Sealing against leaks is also paramount. Any coolant leakage can lead to system corrosion or short-circuiting, Chiang warned. Airtight sealing and anti-leak designs are no longer optional—they're essential.
Power density and thermal efficiency: a new engineering frontier
High AI workloads demand immense power, and that power generates substantial heat. Connectors must now handle high current loads while managing thermal dissipation. TE's Liquid Cool Busbar solution, for example, uses high-purity copper alloys to deliver up to 750 kW of power within a single rack, all while limiting thermal buildup to avoid overheating.
For heat at the module level, TE has developed what it calls "Thermal Bridge" technology. This innovation quickly transfers heat away from I/O modules, reportedly achieving an order-of-magnitude improvement over conventional thermal designs. The flexible compression structure also minimizes stress from thermal expansion and contraction, reducing long-term reliability risks.
Partnerships seek to standardize the next generation
To advance the ecosystem, TE has partnered with Cooler Master and other thermal solution leaders to create scalable and standardized busbar architectures, positioning them as the backbone of next-generation power transmission systems in data centers.
But the company's ambitions extend beyond just cooling. Chiang said TE is also advancing high-speed interconnect infrastructure, developing solutions capable of supporting 224G and even 448G transmission. TE is expanding its portfolio of AOC and active copper solutions to meet the evolving bandwidth and signal integrity demands of AI and high-performance computing (HPC).
TE already supports 224G end-to-end, Chiang noted. From backplanes and sockets to cables and chip-to-I/O connectivity, the company has engineered a complete solution.
The connector's transformation
As AI continues to scale and energy and thermal bottlenecks grow more severe, the humble connector is being redefined—from a passive data link to a critical bridge for energy and system stability.
Supporting the next generation of data centers means moving beyond conventional connector design, Chiang said. It requires innovation in materials, holistic system architecture, and deep collaboration across the global supply chain.
Only through that kind of multidisciplinary evolution, he added, can the industry support the power, bandwidth, and reliability requirements of tomorrow's AI infrastructure.
Article edited by Jerry Chen
