LG Electronics becomes first Korean firm to earn Nvidia certification for liquid cooling solution

LG Electronics is pushing deeper into the global AI data center market, armed with a liquid cooling solution that has cleared Nvidia's quality certification. With heat management emerging as a critical challenge for AI servers, the company is moving to enter the supply chains of global big-tech firms and stake an early claim in the next-generation data center cooling market.

LG Electronics said Monday it had become the first South Korean company to receive final quality certification from Nvidia for a 600-kilowatt coolant distribution unit (CDU). The certification formally recognizes the stability and reliability of the cooling technology for use in Nvidia server racks widely deployed across AI data centers.

The CDU is regarded as the "heart" of liquid cooling. It circulates coolant through cold plates mounted on the GPUs and CPUs of high-density AI servers, directly recovering heat generated by the chips — a Direct-to-Chip (DTC) approach that works in synergy with conventional air-cooling systems.

As the performance of cutting-edge semiconductors such as HBM and GPUs continues to climb, power density and heat output in AI server racks have surged. Conventional air-cooling systems, which cool an entire data center space, are increasingly seen as insufficient. Liquid cooling that targets chips directly has consequently drawn attention as a core technology for next-generation data centers.

LG Electronics' CDU can be operated alongside existing air-cooling systems to boost cooling efficiency, and supports precise temperature control within a 0.25-degree margin to maximize thermal stability for high-heat AI GPUs. The unit incorporates virtual sensors and leak-detection capabilities and can be integrated with data center control systems. In Nvidia's fault-tolerance operation tests, the CDU demonstrated resilience by automatically switching to a backup unit when a fault occurred in the CDU group, ensuring uninterrupted cooling.

The certification also gives LG Electronics a foothold in global AI data center supply chains. The company expects the credential to shorten technology-verification timelines with global hyperscalers and expand opportunities to win large-scale projects. In line with market growth, LG Electronics plans to pursue Nvidia certification sequentially for higher-capacity CDU products rated at 1 MW, 2.5 MW and 4 MW.

The market itself is expanding rapidly. Driven by growing AI infrastructure investment, the global AI data center market is projected to grow at an average annual rate of about 26 percent, reaching approximately $133.5 billion by 2034.

Beyond the CDU, LG Electronics is accelerating development of a "Chip to Chiller" total solution that encompasses chillers for producing coolant and cold plates for direct chip cooling. The company is also pursuing CDU supply for LG CNS's AI data center construction project and a modular AI data center project.

"The importance of liquid cooling solutions in the AI data center market is greater than ever," said Lee Jae-sung, president and head of LG Electronics' ES Business Division. "We will lead the global market as an AI data center total solution provider, drawing on our proprietary cooling technology and 'ONE LG' integrated infrastructure solution capabilities."