Oil giant Shell has made a surprise entry into the data center cooling market. The company has unveiled an innovative cooling fluid for AI servers that is designed to reduce power consumption and increase the efficiency of modern IT infrastructure.
Oil giant Shell has made a surprise entry into the data center cooling market. The company has unveiled an innovative cooling fluid for AI servers that is designed to reduce power consumption and increase the efficiency of modern IT infrastructure.
Shell, one of the world’s largest energy companies, has announced the launch of Shell DLC Fluid S3, a direct cooling fluid designed for high-performance servers, including those running AI and high-performance computing (HPC) systems. As TechRadar reports, this propylene glycol blend complies with the PG25 Open Compute Project standard, making it compatible with many modern server architectures.
Shell’s new product is used in a direct-to-chip format — the liquid directly cools the hottest components such as the CPU and GPU. According to the company, DLC Fluid S3 can reduce PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) by up to 27% compared to traditional air cooling. This is especially important against the backdrop of the rapid growth of demand for computing power for generative AI, cloud services and gaming platforms.
Data centers consume about 2-3% of the world’s electricity, a figure that is growing with the demands of artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Manufacturers are increasingly looking for alternatives to air cooling, a technology that is no longer able to handle the load. Shell’s development is an example of how energy giants are reorienting themselves towards the IT sector, trying to combine their expertise in cooling with changing global trends in digital efficiency.
The fluid also has a fluorescent color to detect leaks, corrosion protection on various types of metals and an extended service life, which is critical for continuous server operation. Shell emphasizes that it now offers both direct chip cooling and immersion cooling solutions.
«We don’t just cool data centers—we shape the infrastructure of the future for the digital world,» said Aysun Akık, vice president of new business development at Shell Lubricants.
Shell previously announced that it would send the proceeds from the purchase of Russian oil to a fund for humanitarian aid to Ukraine. They noted that they would look for alternative sources of oil supply, but could not do so immediately.
