“The move from air-cooled systems to predominantly liquid-cooled solutions allows for greater heat capture and re-use, and this is where cany data centre operators are realising that there is the potential for a new revenue stream from feeding into local heat networks around the data centre,” explains Shahid Rahman, EMEA Data Centre Strategic Account Lead for Mitsubishi Electric.

“We are seeing a rapid acceleration in the AI landscape and the amount of heat generated from data centres is going to grow exponentially, so we need to make it easier to reuse that otherwise wasted heat,” he adds.

Data centres are projected to double in capacity by 2030, both here in the UK and across the globe to serve the massive demands of artificial intelligence (AI), hyperscale operations and cloud computing. That means that there is a growing need to cool down the next generation of servers, which in turn will lead to lots of heat that will be useful for heat networks, such as campus heating on university sites, or estate heating for hospitals or business parks.

The industry is also in a state of transition with data centres moving rapidly from Central Processing Units (CPUs) to Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), which are critical for data-intensive computing.

The UK government recently published its Warm Homes Plan and, while this focuses predominantly on residential heating, it also emphasises the importance of heat networks.

The UK has simply not maximised heat network potential enough and the plan explains how the government will be unlocking low-carbon heat networks, by setting a target to more than double the amount of heat demand met via heat networks in England to 7% (27TWh) by 2035.

Heat networks are expected to provide a fifth of all heat by 2050, which offers significant opportunity to any data centre operator that can link into such a network.

The government is also driving investment through the Green Heat Network Fund with £195 million allocated per year to 2029/30. As we see an increase in the use of GPUs, the potential revenue becomes even more apparent.

“Air-cooled systems will remain vital for full environmental control of a data centre, but we are going to see liquid cooling solutions become the gold standard, explains Rahman. “The increased use of GPUs means even more heat creation, and this can now be turned into a sellable asset.”

The new ME-CDU builds on Mitsubishi Electric’s long‑standing expertise in IT Cooling and unwavering commitment to quality. The new Coolant Distribution Unit is engineered to deliver exceptional stability, precision and continuity in liquid cooling for modern high‑density data centres.

Designed to operate seamlessly within hybrid cooling architectures, the unit provides direct thermal extraction from the most demanding components, while air‑based systems such as the Mitsubishi Electric MEWALL or w-MEXT-XL, manage residual loads and environmental conditions to ensure optimal energy performance across the entire facility.

The ME-CDU offers capacities from 750kW to 1.2MW and is designed specifically with the latest high density, high temperature servers in mind. The unit operates nominally with a Technology Cooling System (TCS) at 34°C / 24°C and a Facility Water System (FWS) at 20°C / 30°C - creating many opportunities for heat reclaim and reuse.

It features a dual hydraulic circuit separated by a plate heat exchanger. The primary circuit incorporates a two‑way valve and 500‑micron filtration, while the secondary circuit includes N+1 redundant pumps, 25‑micron fine filtration, redundant temperature and pressure sensors, and an automatic refill tank to maintain stable pressure even in the presence of micro‑leaks. The unit’s hydraulic structure is built using 304/316 stainless‑steel piping and connections, ensuring fluid purity, resistance to contaminants and long‑term durability.

ME-CDU includes advanced controls with touch screen interface and energy monitoring and utilises efficient operation variable speed hydronic pumps in redundant configuration. It also comes with enhanced control capabilities, including water conductivity monitoring, pH and hardness sensing, which is unique within this category, all combined with a newly designed HMI developed specifically for CDU applications.

“At Mitsubishi Electric, we have a wide range of products all engineered to enable data centres targeting AI and next‑generation workloads to achieve operational continuity, energy optimisation and future‑proof scalability,” adds Rahman, “We believe that the result is a complete and coordinated hybrid cooling system capable of supporting the continuous evolution towards higher densities and increasingly demanding thermal requirements.”