Yunku Smart raises nearly ¥100M for liquid cooling tech
What's the deal? Yunku Smart (云酷智能), a Chinese leader in single-phase immersion liquid cooling, has closed a funding round of nearly ¥100M (roughly $14M). The round was co-led by Changjiang Capital and Changlan Technology as strategic investors, with Aokai Ventures participating as a follow-on investor.
The company builds liquid cooling equipment and full-stack solutions for data centres, telecom base stations, and energy storage systems. It will use the fresh capital for core R&D, market expansion, and senior talent recruitment.
Why now? The global AI compute boom is driving unprecedented demand for efficient cooling infrastructure. As GPU-dense data centres push thermal limits, traditional air cooling is hitting a wall — making liquid cooling not a luxury but a necessity.
China's policy push toward green, low-carbon digital infrastructure adds further tailwind. Strategic backing from Changlan Technology, a cable and power equipment maker, signals that industrial players see liquid cooling as integral to next-generation energy and compute hardware.
What could go wrong? The liquid cooling market in China is getting crowded fast. Dozens of startups and established manufacturers are racing to capture the same data centre upgrade cycle, which could compress margins and make differentiation harder.
Yunku Smart also faces execution risk: scaling from niche deployments to mass production requires reliable supply chains and field-proven reliability — areas where incumbents with deeper pockets may have an edge.
The signal: Yunku Smart's round underscores how China's AI infrastructure investment is expanding beyond chips and models into the thermal management layer. With strategic co-leadership from Changlan Technology, a power cable and equipment manufacturer, the deal signals that industrial supply chain players increasingly view liquid cooling as a core adjacency — not just a startup opportunity but a hardware upgrade cycle tied directly to the accelerating buildout of GPU-dense data centres.
Read more: chinaventure.com.cn
