Cooling the AI Revolution: ACT's Major US Manufacturing Expansion

LANCASTER, PA – May 19, 2026 – In a move that underscores the immense physical demands of the digital age, Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. (ACT) today announced a significant expansion of its U.S. manufacturing capabilities. The company is developing a new 50,000-square-foot facility in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, dedicated to the high-volume production of a critical component for the artificial intelligence boom: liquid cooling cold plates.

This expansion is not merely a corporate growth story; it is a direct response to a looming crisis in the world of high-performance computing. As AI models and data processing tasks become exponentially more complex, the processors that power them are generating unprecedented levels of heat, pushing traditional air-cooling methods to their absolute limits. ACT's new factory, slated to produce over 500,000 cold plates annually, represents a crucial investment in the foundational infrastructure needed to prevent the AI revolution from overheating.

The Inescapable Heat of AI

The servers and processors powering today's AI and high-performance computing (HPC) are a world away from the hardware of just a few years ago. Rack-level power densities, a measure of how much power and heat is concentrated in a single server cabinet, are skyrocketing. Once manageable with fans and air conditioning, densities are now climbing past 30 kilowatts and heading towards 70 kW or even 100 kW—a thermal challenge that air simply cannot solve efficiently.

This has ignited explosive growth in the data center liquid cooling market, which was valued at over $5.5 billion in 2025 and is projected by industry analysts to surge to nearly $19 billion by 2031, growing at a compound annual rate exceeding 22%. Liquid, being far more effective at absorbing and transferring heat than air, has shifted from a niche solution to a baseline requirement for new data center designs.

"Thermal requirements in data centers are changing rapidly, and customers are designing systems with liquid cooling as a baseline assumption," said Bryan Muzyka, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at ACT. "This expansion allows us to align our manufacturing capacity with our best-in-class technical performance, to meet the demands of the industry for high quality, domestic manufactured solutions."

Forging a Domestic AI Supply Chain

ACT's decision to build its new facility in Pennsylvania is as strategic as it is technical. By committing to large-scale U.S.-based production, the company is making a significant play for supply chain resilience. The global pandemic and subsequent geopolitical tensions have exposed the vulnerabilities of long, overseas supply chains for critical technology components. For infrastructure as vital as data centers, which underpin everything from finance to national security, domestic manufacturing is becoming a strategic imperative.

Producing these advanced thermal components stateside offers numerous advantages, including tighter quality control, faster innovation cycles through closer collaboration between R&D and manufacturing teams, and reduced lead times for North American customers. It also aligns with a broader national push to reshore critical manufacturing and secure the technological foundations of the U.S. economy.

"Customers are pushing thermal limits at the chip, server, and rack levels," noted Devin Pellicone, Head of Data Center Solutions at ACT. "They need cold plate solutions that are not only highly thermally efficient, but also reliable, repeatable, and scalable for high-volume deployment. This facility is about delivering that performance and consistency at production scale, right here in the U.S."

The Science of Staying Cool

The technology at the heart of ACT's expansion is its advanced single-phase and two-phase cold plates. While single-phase liquid cooling, which involves pumping a liquid like water over a hot surface, is a major improvement over air, two-phase cooling represents the next frontier. This method utilizes a dielectric fluid that undergoes a phase change—boiling from liquid to vapor directly on the processor's surface. This process absorbs a massive amount of thermal energy through the latent heat of vaporization, making it exceptionally efficient.

ACT's claims of 'best-in-class' performance are backed by impressive technical specifications. The company has demonstrated two-phase cold plates capable of dissipating over 7.5 kilowatts of power from a single unit, simulating the demands of next-generation 'superchips'. These plates can handle a heat flux exceeding 300 W/cm²—a density that would cripple conventional cooling systems—while maintaining a processor's surface temperature below a stable 70°C. This level of performance is essential for preventing thermal throttling, where a chip automatically slows down to avoid overheating, thereby ensuring that expensive AI hardware can run at its full potential.

Blackstone's Big Bet on Foundational Tech

Fueling this ambitious expansion is the formidable financial backing of Blackstone, one of the world's leading investment firms. In February 2026, Blackstone Energy Transition Partners reached a definitive agreement to acquire a majority stake in ACT. This move was not arbitrary; it reflects a sophisticated investment thesis focused on the foundational companies enabling the global energy transition and explosive growth in digital infrastructure.

Blackstone recognizes that as AI and cloud computing consume more electricity, energy efficiency becomes paramount. Advanced cooling is a key lever for reducing the massive energy footprint of data centers, where cooling can account for up to 40% of total power usage. By investing in ACT, Blackstone is betting on a critical enabling technology that makes the digital economy more powerful and more sustainable. The Lancaster factory expansion is the first major strategic initiative announced since the acquisition, signaling a clear intent to aggressively scale ACT's operations to capture a dominant position in this high-growth market.

This partnership provides ACT with the capital to not only build out its physical manufacturing footprint but also to accelerate research and development in next-generation thermal solutions. As the race for AI dominance continues, the underlying competition to manage the resulting heat is intensifying. The new Lancaster facility positions ACT, with Blackstone's support, to be a primary arms dealer in this critical, albeit cooler, side of the conflict. As the digital world accelerates, this facility in Lancaster stands as a testament to the complex, real-world engineering required to sustain our virtual future.