From News Desk

Johnson Controls, a provider of thermal management,  mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency and decarbonisation, is expanding its AI Factory Reference Design Guides with the launch of its second guide, focused on air-cooled chillers. Building on the company’s water-cooled chiller guide released in February, this latest blueprint marks the next step in mapping the full datacentre thermal chain — with additional guides covering absorption chillers and direct-to-chip liquid cooling to follow.

Johnson Controls’ AI Factory Reference Design Guide Series outlines how designers and operators can achieve energy and water efficiency and minimise noise impact on surrounding communities. At the same time, they can remain adaptable to different climates, workloads and growth paths. The new guide supports the scalable design of datacentres of all sizes, up to a 1-GW AI factory, using air-cooled chillers. It outlines a comprehensive thermal cooling architecture that integrates high-efficiency air-cooled YORK centrifugal chillers (including its YDAM and YVAM chillers), fan coil walls (FCWs) and coolant distribution units (CDUs) to manage both air- and liquid-cooled IT loads. The guide provides sizing references for 220MW compute clusters, including recommended design temperatures and operating conditions across each stage of the thermal chain.

“At gigawatt scale, AI factories require a fundamentally different way of thinking about infrastructure,” said Austin Domenici, President, Johnson Controls Global Datacentre Solutions. “The future requires designing integrated systems that can scale predictably, perform efficiently and adapt as technology evolves. This guide reflects how Johnson Controls helps customers plan holistically for AI growth, from design to operations, anywhere in the world.”