Nvidia’s Vera Rubin Has Chilling Effect on HVAC Industry
Rapid development of AI technology could impact HVAC’s role in data centers
COOLED CHIPS: The new Nvidia Vera Rubin platform uses cooling technology that could make water chillers a thing of the past for data centers.
Stocks for major HVAC companies fell on Tuesday following claims from Nvidia that its new Vera Rubin system can be cooled with no water chillers.
The comments were made by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday, where he touted the features of the Vera Rubin chip platform compared to the company’s Grace Blackwell system.
“This is the miracle — the air that goes into it, the air flow is about the same, and very importantly, the water that goes into it is the same temperature, 45° [Celsius],” Huang said during the presentation. “With 45°C, no water chillers are necessary for data centers.
“We're basically cooling this supercomputer with hot water. It is so incredibly efficient.”
The announcement resulted in stock declines for HVAC companies as the market reacted to the news:
- Trane Technologies dropped 8% to a daily low of $359.64 per share on Tuesday and closed at $378.24 Thursday.
- Johnson Controls dropped 8.4% to a daily low of $111.24 per share on Tuesday, closing at $111.27 on Thursday.
- Modine Manufacturing dropped 17.2% to a daily low of $116.27 per share on Tuesday, and closed at $119.90 on Thursday.
With the rising demand for artificial intelligence came the need for data center cooling solutions. These are the most HVAC-intensive project types in the market, generating a demand for displacing heat while managing the cost to cool facilities, such as air cooling or liquid cooling.
According to the American Institute of Architects, data centers are up 33%. The U.S. is forecasted to be the fastest-growing market for data center energy consumption, growing from 25 gigawatts in 2024 to more than 80 GW of demand by 2030, according to consulting firm ICF International.
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But if technology continues on this track, the boom for HVAC might end sooner than later.
A press release from Nvidia said Rubin is in full production, and Rubin-based products will be available from partners in the second half of 2026.
The Science Causing Stock Drops
According to Nvidia’s website, the Vera Rubin NVL72 systems use warm-water, single-phase direct liquid cooling with a 45°C supply temperature. This means that data centers can cool water with ambient air, translating to power savings compared to solutions that use 35°C liquid cooling.
“Less energy spent on cooling means more energy available for compute and higher sustained utilization across the AI factory,” Nvidia said on its website.
AI factories draw hundreds of megawatts of power, about 30% of which is lost due to power conversion, distribution, and cooling, according to Nvidia. Companies are looking for ways to make these factories more efficient and reduce costs.
Nvidia is building a Vera Rubin NVL72 AI factory research center in Manassas, Virginia, to optimize and validate the reference design for 100 megawatts up to gigawatt-scale AI factories. The design integrates the Vera Rubin NVL72 rack design with the cooling infrastructure.
Nvidia’s stock hit a daily high of $191.73 on Monday, but as of 4 p.m. Thursday, was at $185.08.
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