HRL Laboratories Launches 3D Printed Low-Chill Cooling Technology for Data Centers With 40% Better Performance

HRL Laboratories, the Malibu-based R&D venture jointly owned by Boeing and General Motors, has announced a breakthrough in data center cooling technology using 3D printed components. The new Low-Chill direct liquid cooling (DLC) solution was developed with funding from the US Department of Energy ARPA-E program as part of the COOLERCHIPS initiative.

Addressing the Data Center Cooling Crisis

Data center cooling currently accounts for 40% or more of a data center energy expenditure — a cost that continues to rise as computing demands intensify. The COOLERCHIPS program, launched by ARPA-E in 2022, aims to drastically lower these cooling costs.

We designed this technology with real data center constraints in mind, said Christopher Roper, HRL principal investigator and technical lead for the COOLERCHIPS project. By rethinking how coolant is delivered at the block level, we can cool far more powerful processors using single-phase liquid cooling that fits within todays data center architectures and operational risk profiles.

How 3D Printing Enables Better Cooling

The key innovation lies in HRL use of 3D printed manifolds that distribute coolant through hundreds of short flow paths. Unlike traditional cooling systems that rely on long intra-channel flow paths along hot fins, Low-Chill uses a single-phase cooling approach — meaning there no need to vaporize and recondense the coolant.

This is a significant advantage over more expensive two-phase cooling systems, as single-phase cooling is simpler, more reliable, and easier to maintain at scale.

Performance Results

• 40% increase in cooling capacity under equivalent pumping power compared to existing solutions
• Scalable design for multi-chip modules
• Built to handle next-generation chips from NVIDIA and other manufacturers
• Fits within existing data center architectures

Why This Matters for 3D Printing

This announcement represents another compelling example of additive manufacturing solving real-world thermal management challenges. The complex geometries enabled by 3D printing allow for optimized coolant pathways that simply cant be manufactured using traditional methods.