Danish pump and water solutions provider Grundfos expects China to become a key growth market for advanced data center cooling as the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) raises computing density and puts mounting pressure on electricity and water supplies, a senior executive said. Data center solutions have grown from a niche operation into one of Grundfos’ core businesses over the past few years, said Julian Trascasa Cano, the company’s Vice President for Industry Solutions and marketing. Cano told China Daily that he expects strong demand growth to continue for at least three years, with data center cooling among the company’s fastest-growing markets globally and in China. “Data requirements in the world are growing exponentially, and that trend is only going to accelerate,” Cano said. The expansion is particularly significant in China, whose intelligent computing capacity reached 2,185 exaflops by the end of June, up 177% year-on-year, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). The overall utilization rate of the country’s computing facilities stood at 71.4%.
That expansion is also changing how the industry defines a green data center. The sector is shifting from standalone energy-efficiency improvements toward coordinated management of computing power, energy and water resources, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) said. CAICT and Grundfos jointly released a white paper emphasizing that linking computing equipment with cooling, energy and water systems was becoming increasingly important to data centers’ overall efficiency. As AI chips consume more power and racks become denser, conventional air cooling is increasingly unable to remove heat quickly enough. Nearly all electricity consumed by a data center ultimately becomes heat, making fluid systems critical to performance and equipment safety, Cano said. Liquid cooling transfers heat more effectively than air, but does not automatically reduce overall energy or water consumption. This is especially relevant to China’s computing hubs in the western regions, where cooler climates and abundant renewable electricity can reduce cooling requirements, but water scarcity may make even relatively modest consumption a burden on local resources.
Cano said better coordination between computing loads, cooling equipment and water flows could cut total electricity use by as much as 12% in a well-run data center, without requiring large-scale replacement of existing assets. The surge in data center demand has already helped lift the Danish company’s results. Grundfos reported revenue of USD2.78 billion in the first half of 2026, with sales rising 7.7% in local-currency terms. It identified data center solutions as a key growth driver, particularly in the United States, where overall company sales rose by more than 20%. In China, Grundfos operates manufacturing plants in Suzhou and Changshu, Jiangsu province and Shanghai’s Minhang district, as well as local R&D operations, the China Daily reports.
