Innovative Liquid Cooling Solutions for Data Centers

OVERVIEW

ExxonMobil, the Seeker for this Innocentive Challenge, is looking for innovative liquid cooling solutions for data centers.

Modern data centers host large numbers of servers and specialized hardware that process massive amounts of data and perform complex calculations. This intense computational activity generates significant amounts of heat, which needs to be removed to prevent hardware failures and ensure proper system performance.

In recent years, interest in liquid cooling technologies for data centers has increased. Compared to air, liquids generally possess higher specific heat capacity, which can influence thermal management strategies. Liquid cooling is being explored in data centers for its benefits in areas such as performance, scalability, and environmental impact.

There are several major types of liquid cooling—with each type having their own advantages and disadvantages. Direct-to-chip (D2C) and immersion cooling are among the most popular.

With strong expertise in hydrocarbon chemistry, ExxonMobil has commercialized several immersion cooling fluids for data center applications. As the demand for data centers accelerates globally, ExxonMobil is committed to advancing its liquid cooling technologies to meet evolving performance and efficiency requirements. The objective of this Challenge is to find/propose new, innovative coolants that are significantly better than existing hydrocarbon-based fluids.

The Solvers are expected to propose new molecules, materials, polymers, additives, nanoparticles, or phase-change materials to achieve the stated objective. While improved thermal performance is vitally important, the proposed liquid cooling solutions should also be operationally robust and compatible with the specific conditions of data centers. Importantly, all proposed solutions must incorporate materials that are safe for both human health and the environment, with no toxic or hazardous properties.

To be considered successful, a solution must include at least one approach that satisfies the specified technical criteria, with each element substantiated by scientific principles or publicly available data.

Please read this carefully, as this Prize Challenge has an unusual intellectual property agreement.

By taking part in and submitting to this Challenge, you are granting ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company (or “ExxonMobil”) a non-exclusive, right to use, your submitted information. However, ExxonMobil must determine the award winners within 75 days from the start of evaluation; otherwise, ExxonMobil loses this right.

At the end of the 75-day evaluation period, one or more Solvers will share the total guaranteed award amount of $50,000, with a main prize minimum of $20,000 and no prize smaller than $4,000. All the Solvers whose solutions are not awarded will receive back all the rights to their solution while ExxonMobil retains its non-exclusive rights.

Further, for all awarded solutions, the winning Solvers will be required to keep their submitted solutions confidential for a period of 2 years from the start of evaluation, during which ExxonMobil may conduct further feasibility testing; at any time during this 2-year period, ExxonMobil reserves the rights to obtain exclusive ownership rights to the awarded solutions, for an additional prize of $50,000.

The Challenge Agreement which you must accept when you submit your proposal, can be read here. It includes the special Intellectual Property and Confidentiality terms being applied to this challenge.

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on November 17th, 2025.

Please review the later Participation Guidance section before submitting a proposal.
 

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ABOUT THE SEEKER & ELIGIBILITY

ExxonMobil, one of the largest publicly traded international energy and petrochemical companies, creates solutions that improve quality of life and meet society’s evolving needs. The corporation’s primary businesses - Upstream, Product Solutions and Low Carbon Solutions - provide products that enable modern life, including energy, chemicals, lubricants, and lower emissions technologies. ExxonMobil holds an industry-leading portfolio of resources, and is one of the largest integrated fuels, lubricants, and chemical companies in the world.

Employees of ExxonMobil are ineligible to receive an award for this Challenge.

THE CHALLENGE

Background

Modern data centers host large numbers of servers and specialized hardware that process massive amounts of data and perform complex calculations. This intense computational activity generates significant amounts of heat. If this heat is not efficiently removed, the temperature inside data centers can rise rapidly, potentially leading to hardware failure, reduced system performance, increased risk of data loss, and shortened equipment lifespan.

Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), defined as the ratio of a data center’s total energy consumption to the energy used solely for computing, remains a key metric for operational efficiency. In legacy data centers, PUE values often exceed 2.0, revealing that more than half of the total energy consumption was allocated to cooling, power distribution, and other non-computing functions. Today, even modern data centers typically report PUE values between 1.2 and 1.5, indicating that 20% to 50% of total energy is still consumed by cooling, power distribution, and other non-computing functions.

Another key parameter is the Thermal Design Power (TDP), which quantifies the maximum heat a processor is engineered to dissipate under typical workloads, directly influencing cooling requirements and system performance. Over the past decade, TDP has consistently risen as manufacturers pack increasing numbers of transistors into smaller volumes, increasing thermal output and necessitating more advanced cooling solutions. Modern CPUs now exceed 200W and GPUs typically surpass 400W, with projections indicating power demands will reach over 1 kW in the coming years, posing significant challenges for thermal management in the future.

The drive for lower PUE in data centers is pushing traditional air cooling to its limits, accelerating the need for smarter, more efficient thermal management solutions. Thus, in recent years, there has been growing interest in liquid cooling technologies. By 2026, driven by AI and high-density computing demands, over a third of enterprise data centers are expected to use liquid cooling. Liquids have a higher heat-absorbing capacity than air, making liquid cooling a compelling choice for improving performance, scalability, and energy efficiency in data centers.

There are two major types of liquid cooling: direct-to-chip cooling (D2C) and immersion cooling.

D2C cooling uses cold plates mounted directly onto the surfaces of high-heat-generating components like CPUs and GPUs. Coolant (typically water, propylene glycol, or mixture of both) flows through channels inside these plates, absorbing heat directly from the chips enabling improved thermal performance. The heated coolant is then pumped to a heat exchanger, where the heat is transferred away from the system. The primary risk associated with this approach is the potential for water leakage into sensitive components; consequently, tremendous efforts have been focused on preventing leakage.

In contrast, immersion cooling involves submerging entire servers or electronic devices in a dielectric, non-conductive fluid with high thermal conductivity. The fluid directly absorbs heat from all components, and the heated liquid is circulated through heat exchangers to remove the heat from the system.

Immersion cooling provides benefits such as improved energy efficiency, lower water consumption, increased productivity (more compute power within same power envelope), increased hardware lifespan, and lower cost.

Despite its thermal advantages, immersion cooling presents several challenges including material compatibility, flammability, toxicity, and signal integrity in comparison to air cooling or direct-to-chip liquid cooling.

The objective of this Challenge is to find/propose new, innovative coolants that are significantly better than existing hydrocarbon-based fluids.

The Challenge

Data center immersing cooling fluids are dielectric and non-conductive liquids with high thermal conductivity. These fluids should also have low viscosity to reduce the pumping power and should be non-toxic and non-flammable.

Many dielectric fluids or heat transfer fluids have been considered for this purpose: transformer oils, EV fluids, or battery energy storage systems. These liquids usually derive from petroleum or are chemically synthesized, as, for example, ExxonMobil^TM Data immersion fluids. Most of these liquids are hydrocarbon-based, comprised of mostly paraffins or aliphatic molecules. Silicon-, fluorine-containing hydrocarbons, and esters have also been used.

We expect the Solvers to either identify new coolants for immersion cooling or ways to improve the performance of existing fluids, for example, new molecules that are suitable to be incorporated into the coolant, or new additives, nanoparticles, or phase change materials for formulations. While improved thermal performance is the primary objective, the proposed successful solutions are expected to meet additional requirements outlined in the list below.

SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS

Any successful solution to the Challenge must meet the following major requirements:

1. Provide step-change enhanced immersion cooling capability in data center thermal management compared to today’s solutions.

• Traditional performance can be screened using OCP’s FOM2*, but nontraditional methods will also be evaluated.

2. Low toxicity

• Non-carcinogenic
• Minimal skin and respiratory irritation
• Low volatility (for single-phase immersion coolants).

3. PFAS-free (PFAS: Per- and polyfluorinated substances).

4. Resistance to degradation (expected service life >1 year exposure at 60˚C).

5. Non-conductive/dielectric.

6. Flash point of 150˚C or greater (or no flash point).

Other traditional measures of a good solution and metrics that may be used to score ideas are:

7. Minimum dielectric constant

8. Kinematic viscosity of 10 cSt or less at 100˚C

9. Compatibility with IT hardware and supporting equipment that is also immersed (such as cables and resins)

• Reference Open Compute Project (OCP) Guidelines.

*Solvers are encouraged to reference Open Compute Project’s (OCPs) Figure of Merits for forced convection (FOM2) for further background. 

We’re open to any solution that promises to achieve improved thermal performance. The preference will be given to coolants that are significantly better than existing fluids and are practical to implement.

We’re not going to accept solutions that are outside the scope of immersion cooling or D2C cooling approaches.

Important! We’re not interested in just a literature review on the topic of liquid cooling formulations, or a general solution. Every successful solution must be well-defined, scientifically sound, and practical to implement.

To reiterate: submitted proposals that do not include specific solutions will not be considered.

Solutions with Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) 2-6 are invited.

This Prize Challenge has the following features and unusual IP arrangements:

1. By taking part and submitting, you are granting ExxonMobil a non-exclusive right to use your submitted proposed solution(s). However, ExxonMobil must determine the award winners within 75 days from the start of evaluation; otherwise, ExxonMobil loses this right. You will receive notification about the status of your proposal.

2. The Challenge requires a written proposal to be submitted, and the award distribution (or allocation) will be determined after theoretical evaluation of the proposed solutions by ExxonMobil.

3. At the end of the 75-day evaluation period, one or more Solvers will share the total guaranteed prize pool amount of $50,000, with a main prize minimum of $20,000 and no prize smaller than $4,000. All the Solvers whose solutions are not awarded will receive back all the rights to their solution, while ExxonMobil retains non-exclusive rights.

4. The winning Solvers will be required to keep their submitted solutions confidential for a period of 2 years, during which ExxonMobil may conduct further feasibility testing; at any time during this 2-year period, ExxonMobil reserves the right to obtain exclusive rights to the awarded solutions, for an additional individual prize of $50,000.

5. Solvers may:

• Submit ideas of their own,
• Submit third-party information that they have the right to use and further, the authority to convey to ExxonMobil this right with the right to use and develop derivative works,
• Submit information considered in the public domain without any limitations on use.

6. ExxonMobil may also issue “Honourable Mention” recognitions for notable submissions that are not selected for monetary awards.

YOUR SUBMISSION

The submitted proposals must be written in English. Proposals should strive to be as concise and clear as possible, and include: 

1. Participation type – you will first be asked to inform us how you are participating in this challenge, as a Solver (Individual) or Solver (Organization).
2. Partnering - there may be an opportunity to partner at the conclusion of this Challenge. Please indicate if partnering is of interest to you.
3. Solution Overview - detail the features of your solution and how they address the SOLUTION REQUIREMENTS, consider including a description of the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) (200 words, there is space to add more in the summary field, and attach supporting data, diagrams, etc.).
4. Experience - Expertise, use cases and skills you or your organization have in relation to your proposed solution (up to 200 words).
5. Solution Risks and Uncertainties – outline any risks or uncertainties associated with your solution and describe how you would plan to address them (up to 200 words)
6. Online References - provide links to any publications, articles or press releases of relevance (up to 200 words).

PARTICIPATION GUIDANCE

1. Submission Close Date: Submissions to this Challenge must be received by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on November 17th, 2025.
2. Late submissions: Late submissions will not be considered.
3. Multiple submissions, 3 Maximum: In case of multiple submissions by the same Solver, only 3 submissions – the final 3 submitted – will be considered. Any other submissions will be deleted prior to evaluation.
4. Submission form and attachments: Your submission will be evaluated by the evaluation team first reviewing the information and content you have submitted at the submission form, with attachments used as additional context to your form submission. Submissions relying solely on attachments will receive less attention from the evaluation team.
5. Evaluation notification steps: After the Challenge submission close date, ExxonMobil will review and select the winning ideas/solutions according to the timeline in the Challenge header. Everyone who submits a proposal will be notified about the status of their submissions.
6. Use of AI: Please note that any submissions produced solely with generative AI are not of interest.
7. Learn more: Find out more about participation in Innocentive Challenges.