Akash Systems Delivers Diamond-Cooled NVIDIA GPUs
Akash Systems announced it has delivered the world's first NVIDIA GPU servers cooled with synthetic diamond to NxtGen AI Pvt Ltd. The company's Diamond Cooling solution is an additive technology that works with existing air and liquid cooling. It claims to increase GPU compute performance by approximately 15% in high ambient temperature data centers by eliminating thermal throttling.
- The core technology relies on synthetic diamond's superior thermal conductivity, which is about five times higher than copper, to dissipate heat more effectively from semiconductor chips. This method reduces GPU hotspot temperatures by 10-20°C, even in systems that are already liquid-cooled, and can decrease GPU fan speeds by 50%, leading to a 90% reduction in fan energy consumption. - Akash Systems' co-founder, Felix Ejeckam, invented the underlying Gallium Nitride (GaN)-on-Diamond technology in 2003. The company later acquired the full intellectual property rights, which now include over 50 patents, creating a significant competitive barrier. - The deal with NxtGen AI Pvt Ltd, valued at $27 million, will see these diamond-cooled servers deployed across NxtGen's data centers in India. NxtGen, a major AI compute provider in India, aims to cut AI compute costs for its customers by over 50% by combining Akash's cooling with waterless liquid cooling and advanced NVIDIA and AMD GPUs. - Beyond performance gains, this cooling technology is projected to double the operational lifespan of servers. For platform infrastructure leaders, this translates to a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) through reduced maintenance, replacement cycles, and energy expenditure. - The market for data center cooling is expanding rapidly, with projections showing growth from over $11 billion in 2025 to over $30 billion by 2034, driven by the increasing heat generated by AI and high-density computing workloads. Liquid cooling solutions are becoming mainstream as traditional air cooling proves insufficient for the demands of modern GPUs. - Akash Systems has secured significant government and private funding, including up to $68 million under the CHIPS and Science Act and a recent $18.2 million grant to build a 40,000-square-foot semiconductor manufacturing facility in Oakland, California. The company's total funding to date is approximately $84 million. - The company's origins are in satellite communications, where its GaN-on-Diamond technology was first used to increase data transmission rates and efficiency in the harsh, airless environment of space. This history underscores the technology's reliability and performance under extreme thermal stress. - Prominent venture capitalists, including Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures) and Peter Thiel, are among the backers of Akash Systems, signaling strong investor confidence in the technology's potential to disrupt the AI infrastructure market.
