THERMAL MANAGEMENT
The rise of dual systems thinking in power and thermal strategy
By Dominik Dziarczykowski, market development manager, high density & liquid cooling at Vertiv
F
or years, power and thermal planning have operated as separate disciplines in data centre design. Cooling was a mechanical issue. Power, an electrical one. Engineers might share blueprints, but rarely strategies. Now, as AI workloads drive up densities and volatility, that separation is breaking down. A new model is emerging - one built not around individual systems, but around synergy. Known as dual systems thinking, this approach recognises that no single component can be optimised in isolation. Instead, resilience and performance are achieved through pairing: air and liquid cooling working in tandem; uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems matched precisely with battery chemistries; software orchestration tightly integrated with hardware infrastructure.
The limits of bolt-on thinking The legacy model relied heavily on bolt-on upgrades; add liquid cooling to an air-
optimised build; stack in more batteries; use software to patch the gaps. The method was clear. However, today these workarounds are reaching the edge of their usefulness. AI workloads do not just increase density, they introduce volatility. Racks go from idle to full load in seconds, thermal spikes can be immediate and severe, power draw is unpredictable and often exceeds the assumptions built into traditional designs. air-optimised system, for example, might help temporarily - but it doesn’t resolve the underlying disconnect. Air and liquid interact differently with hardware. Each responds to load in different ways, and each affects the performance of the other. Without integration, they compete rather than complement. The same holds true for power. A UPS designed for long outages may be poorly suited to the fast-switching needs of AI processing. Batteries chosen for runtime might underperform in environments where stability
30 JULY/AUGUST 2025 | ELECTRONICS FOR ENGINEERS
and rapid cycling matter more and yet, many facilities are still making these decisions independently.
Instead, what works is design that starts with integration. That means planning liquid and air cooling together, pairing power delivery with software that can anticipate and respond systems with batteries - not just by capacity thermal behaviour.
Pairing up: What dual systems look like
Vertiv’s work with key partners like NVIDIA has highlighted what dual systems thinking looks like in practice. The shift is not theoretical, it is architectural.
Rather than choosing between liquid and air cooling, facilities are planning systems
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