Guohai Securities: Nvidia's structural upgrade promotes liquid cooling development and domestic enterprises have obvious advantages

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Guohai Securities released a research report saying that the Nvidia architecture upgrade has promoted the development of liquid cooling. The GB300 liquid cooling covers 80% + of heating elements, and the Rubin Kyber frame is expected to achieve 100% liquid cooling in 2027, and GPU liquid cooling demand will increase significantly; ASIC cooling has high gross profit potential, and 2026 is expected to usher in a wave of shipments. Technology giants such as Google, Meta, and Amazon will launch a large number of ASIC chips. The core of liquid cooling and cooling is manufacturing plus materials science. The relevant advantages of local Chinese companies are obvious. I am optimistic that world-class liquid cooling companies will be born in mainland China in the future. It is recommended to focus on Qilong Technology, Shuguang Digital (872808.BJ), Invec (002837.SZ), Feirongda (300602.SZ), and Chuanhuan Technology (300547.SZ).

Guohai Securities's main views are as follows:

GB300 liquid cooling covers high-power components that generate 80% or more of the heat. Rubin-based Kyber racks are expected to achieve 100% liquid cooling in 2027

The performance of Blackwell architectures has surged, and liquid cooling is almost a must if you want to take full advantage of Blackwell chips. According to Yunfan Thermal Management's official account in August of this year, the core of the GB300 liquid cooling system is a “direct-to-chip liquid cooling (DLC)” architecture, that is, the coolant is directly bonded to high-power components such as GPUs, NVLink switching chips, and CPUs (accounting for more than 80% of total heat generation) through a microchannel cold plate (cold plate) to achieve accurate heat transfer; the rest of the low-power components (such as memory, storage, I/O interface) are used through system-level air cooling or auxiliary liquid cooling (such as backplane circulation liquid) (Cold) Auxiliary heat dissipation. Nvidia plans to launch the Rubin Ultra NVL576 (600kW class) Kyber rack in 2027, which will completely eliminate air cooling and achieve 100% liquid cooling.

Cold plate liquid cooling boosts demand for the four major components. The GPU liquid cooling market is expected to reach 80 billion yuan in 2026

The cold plate, CDU, UQD, and Manifold are the main components on the indoor side of the cold plate liquid cooling solution. It is estimated that these four major components currently account for more than 90% of the total value of the GB200 NVL72 cooling solution. The first batch of GB300 shipments will still use the Bianca architecture. In the future, the Cordelia architecture will use an independent liquid cooling plate design, and each chip will be equipped with a separate liquid cooling plate. The Compute Tray cold plate usage will increase from 54 GB200 to 126 GB300; the UQD size will be reduced to 1/3, and the unit price will drop, but the usage will double. Based on the calculation of the value of liquid cooling in a single cabinet of 700,000 yuan, assuming that 100,000 to 120,000 cabinets will be shipped next year, the GPU liquid cooling market is expected to reach 80 billion yuan.

ASIC cooling has higher gross profit potential, and 2026 is expected to usher in a wave of ASIC chip shipments

ASIC products are mostly customer-led design and cooperative development, so they include mold design and manufacturing costs. In addition, there are fewer competitors, and the overall quotation space is more flexible, and it will become another key development direction in the industry chain in the future. At present, Google has fully adopted the liquid cooling solution, and its liquid cooled TPU cluster has now achieved GW level operation scale, maintaining high availability of 99.999% over the past seven years. 2026 is expected to usher in a wave of ASIC chip shipments. According to the Electronic Semiconductor Watch website, Google's TPU shipments are expected to reach 1.5 million to 2 million units in 2025, Meta plans to launch 1 million high-performance AI ASIC chips (about 1 million to 1.5 million) between the end of 2025 and 2026, and Amazon AWS's Trainium2 ASIC chip shipments will reach 1.4 million to 1.5 million.

The liquid cooling circuit may create new industry leaders, and Chinese companies have strong potential for growth in the future

Qiyuan Technology: The company and its subsidiary Husstar successfully entered the core supply chain of the American cloud vendor GB200/GB300 server liquid cooling architecture, while further increasing the added value of the product in the application of ASIC platforms. Shuguang Digital Innovation (872808.BJ): The company is the only domestic enterprise that has achieved large-scale commercial deployment of submerged phase change liquid cooling solutions. In the cold plate liquid cooling solution, the company broke through the traditional air cooling model and adopted a liquid cooling+air cooling mixed cooling form.

Invico (002837.SZ): Verified by Intel in 2024, the company's UQD products are listed as Nvidia's MGX ecosystem partners. Feirongda (300602.SZ): Self-developed 3DVC radiator. Currently, the cooling power consumption can reach 1,400w. It has also become the core supplier of leading companies in liquid cooling, and some products have been delivered in batches. Chuanhuan Technology (300547.SZ): Liquid-cooled server piping products have reached V0 level standards and obtained US UL certification.

Investment advice

Blackwell's performance has surged, and liquid cooling solutions have become essential; ASIC chip liquid cooling requirements are clear, and a high degree of customization boosts gross margin. With the continuous deployment and iteration of GB200/GB300 and the introduction of ASIC servers one after another, the cooling industry is expected to open up room for growth and welcome a sharp rise in volume and price. Furthermore, based on China's deep foundation in related fields such as manufacturing and materials science, I am optimistic that the local market will establish world-class liquid cooling companies in the future.

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