JCI extends AI factory cooling guide
5th May 2026
USA: Johnson Controls has released its second data centre reference design guide for cooling gigawatt‑scale AI factories.
This latest AI Factory Reference Design Guide is focused on air-cooled chillers and builds on the company’s water‑cooled chiller guide released in February. Additional guides covering absorption chillers and direct‑to‑chip liquid cooling are to follow.
The guides address the mounting challenges faced in data centre design, including the power needed for cooling systems, rising cooling‑loop temperatures, efficiency losses from heat islands and limited water availability.
The new guide supports the scalable design of data centres of all sizes, up to a 1GW AI factory, utilising air-cooled chillers. It outlines a comprehensive thermal cooling architecture that integrates
air-cooled York centrifugal chillers (including its YDAM and YVAM chillers), fan coil walls and coolant distribution units 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.
Key outcomes claimed for the blueprint include 50MW returned to the AI factory through the implementation of bifurcated loops for air- and liquid- cooling systems; a 32% improvement in annual energy consumption through the intelligent utilisation of redundant chillers; 20MW peak power savings by quantifying and mitigating heat island effects of air-cooled chiller plants; 30% COP improvement and 27% fewer chillers from raising the chilled water temperature to support warm-water technology cooling system loops.
Learn more about Johnson Controls’s Reference Guide Series here.
