Johnson Controls (JCI), a global technology leader in energy efficiency, decarbonization, thermal management, and mission-critical performance, has signed an agreement to acquire Alloy Enterprises, a Boston-based company specializing in a next-generation thermal management platform for high-performance data centers and other mission-critical industrial applications. The move will expand Johnson Controls’ leadership and capabilities in the high-growth data center cooling segment.
Founded in 2020, Alloy Enterprises is a thermal, mechanical, and materials sciences technology innovator focused on a proprietary platform with advanced direct liquid cooling components that can enable up to a 35% improvement in thermal management efficiency — allowing heat to be removed faster and more effectively, and reducing pressure drop by up to 75% so fluid can flow more easily. This results in materially lower overall cooling system energy use.
The acquisition further advances Johnson Controls’ extensive thermal management portfolio and aligns with its ambition to deliver highly differentiated cooling solutions for data centers. The addition of Alloy’s capabilities, including a proprietary manufacturing process that advances the liquid cooling efficiency of GPUs/CPUs, memory, network interfaces, and more, complements Johnson Controls’ existing range of end-to-end cooling technologies. These include its recently launched YDAM magnetic bearing chiller — delivering 3.5 MW of cooling, a 20% capacity density increase versus competing solutions, its YK-HT two-stage economized centrifugal chiller — almost 30% smaller than alternatives, requiring up to 60% fewer dry coolers and delivering the industry’s widest operating range from a single driveline, its Silent-Aire Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) platform — a scalable liquid cooling solution offering cooling capacities from 500kW to over 10MW, and its YHAU absorption chillers — designed to recover waste heat and deliver additional cooling more than 90% more efficiently than electrical cooling.