Cooling Operations Optimized for Leaps in Energy, Reliability and Carbon Hyperefficiency for Information Processing Systems (COOLERCHIPS) | DE FOA 0002851

Opportunity Information: Apply for DE FOA 0002851

The Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) funding opportunity DE-FOA-0002851, titled Cooling Operations Optimized for Leaps in Energy, Reliability and Carbon Hyperefficiency for Information Processing Systems (COOLERCHIPS), is aimed at pushing computing cooling technology well beyond what is typical in today’s data centers. The central goal is to develop high-performance, high-reliability cooling systems for compute electronics that dramatically cut the energy used for cooling while enabling much higher power-density computing. In practical terms, ARPA-E is looking for cooling approaches that can keep very power-dense servers and racks operating reliably while using 5 percent or less of the IT load for cooling, and doing so anywhere in the United States and at any time of year. The program is positioned as applied research and development with strong expectations around prototype demonstration, cost and reliability realism, and a credible pathway to broad deployment.

COOLERCHIPS is motivated by the collision of several trends: rapidly rising compute demand (including AI and high-performance computing), increasing heat flux at the chip level, and growing constraints on energy, carbon, water, and siting for data centers and edge computing. Traditional air cooling and incremental refinements to conventional data center thermal architectures are increasingly strained as rack power densities climb. ARPA-E’s intent here is not small optimization, but step-change cooling technologies that could unlock new "learning curves" in performance and cost, with the potential to become disruptive and widely adopted if the technical targets are met. Alongside energy efficiency, ARPA-E emphasizes reliability and real-world operability, meaning proposed systems must show a plausible route to data-center-grade uptime, maintainability, monitoring, and failure tolerance, not just lab performance.

Technically, the FOA highlights a broad set of innovation directions, encouraging teams to leverage advances across thermal management, coolant flow, materials and coatings, manufacturing methods, system design, controls, and reliability engineering. Example areas include new materials or surface treatments and improved thermal interface solutions to get heat out of chipsets more effectively; heat-transfer approaches that shape or control three-dimensional fluid structures to minimize thermal boundary layers and improve heat removal; reliability-focused cooling system engineering that tackles failure severity, likelihood, and detectability with ideas like system-level risk mitigation, health monitoring, and intelligent controls; and new modular data center or edge system designs that can sustain high-density computing in any outdoor ambient condition while maintaining very efficient cooling. The FOA is intentionally multi-disciplinary, and ARPA-E is explicit that competitive teams should blend expertise from computing servers and packaging, heat transfer and fluid dynamics, modeling, reliability, data center operations and techno-economics, and commercialization.

ARPA-E organizes the opportunity into four Technical Categories, and each application must be submitted to only one category (though an organization can submit multiple distinct applications, and can participate on multiple teams). Categories A and B focus on building and demonstrating hardware solutions, while Categories C and D are enabling functions that support design optimization and testing at program scale. Category A centers on innovations that remove heat from server chipsets and carry it through to the facility cooling system, with concepts that could potentially be deployed inside the compute rooms of existing data centers. Category B focuses on modular, stand-alone data center pods or edge compute modules designed to operate across any outside ambient environment, effectively treating the module as a self-contained high-density compute and thermal management unit. Category C supports the development of tools to design and analyze compute and data center cooling systems at the system level, with a strong emphasis on optimizing reliability while minimizing energy use, carbon footprint, and cost. Category D provides testing facilities intended to evaluate performance and help bridge technology from prototype to commercialization by offering credible, comparable validation environments.

The performance targets embedded in the FOA are aggressive and framed as transformative. The program is looking for solutions that keep cooling power consumption at or below 5 percent of the IT load while supporting very high rack power density, specified as 126 kW per 42U rack (or equivalent). Just as importantly, solutions are expected to meet these targets "at any time and any location in the US," using design-day thinking similar to ASHRAE-style approaches (the FOA references 0.4 percent design day targets). In other words, proposals should not depend on mild climates, seasonal advantages, or narrow operating windows. ARPA-E also signals that technical success alone is not enough: projects need to show a path to system reliability and cost that is comparable to conventional data centers, which implicitly raises expectations for fault tolerance, maintainability, supply chain realism, and operational compatibility.

The program is structured for a period of performance of up to 36 months and is staged to force early technical risk retirement before larger-scale builds. For Category A and B projects in particular, ARPA-E anticipates teams will begin with analytical and computational design work, then move into component testing and single-server demonstration to prove out the hardest physics and engineering risks. Midway through the project, there is an expected Go/No-Go milestone where ARPA-E will decide whether the concept has sufficiently reduced key risks to justify the expense and effort of full-scale prototyping. If teams pass that gate, the second half of the project is aimed at building, fabricating, and testing full-size prototypes: rack-scale demonstrations for Category A and full-scale modular data center or edge system demonstrations for Category B. This is a classic ARPA-E pattern: fund bold ideas, but require measurable progress and proof points that indicate potential for scaling and real adoption.

From an administrative and eligibility standpoint, the opportunity is listed as open to an unrestricted set of applicant entity types, subject to any specific clarifications in the FOA text. The funding instruments include cooperative agreements, grants, and other mechanisms. The assistance listing references CFDA 81.135, and the activity category is oriented to science and technology and other R&D (with the notice also listing "Opportunity Zone Benefits" as part of the activity categorization metadata). The award ceiling is stated as up to $10,000,000 per award, with an expectation of around 20 awards. Because ARPA-E often uses cooperative agreements, awardees should typically expect substantial federal involvement in project management, milestone tracking, and go/no-go decision points compared to a more hands-off grant program.

Applications must be submitted through ARPA-E eXCHANGE, and ARPA-E notes that it will not review or consider concept papers submitted by other means. The FOA directs applicants to obtain the full announcement from the ARPA-E FOA website and to use the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guide for submission mechanics. For support with the submission platform, applicants are directed to email ExchangeHelp@hq.doe.gov with the FOA name and number in the subject line. For FOA content questions, ARPA-E points applicants to an FAQ page first, and then to a program email address (ARPA-E-CO@hq.doe.gov) for questions not already answered. The original posting information included a closing date of October 26, 2022 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time, with a recommendation to submit at least 48 hours early, which is typical for ARPA-E given the complexity of submissions and the risk of last-minute technical issues.

Overall, COOLERCHIPS is best read as a push to make high-density compute far less constrained by cooling energy and far more deployable across geography and climate, without sacrificing reliability or economics. It is designed to move beyond incremental improvements and toward integrated thermal, mechanical, controls, and reliability solutions that can be demonstrated at meaningful scale. The combination of strict cooling-power targets, very high rack densities, all-climate operation, and explicit attention to reliability and cost makes it clear ARPA-E is looking for solutions that could realistically change how future data centers and edge systems are built and operated, not just improve a component in isolation.

• The Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy in the opportunity zone benefits, science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Cooling Operations Optimized for Leaps in Energy, Reliability and Carbon Hyperefficiency for Information Processing Systems (COOLERCHIPS)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 81.135.
• This funding opportunity was created on Sep 22, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 26, 2022 Submissions to this FOA are due no later than 930 a.m. Eastern Time on 10/26/2022. Applicants are strongly encouraged to submit at least 48 hours in advance of the due date.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $10,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 20 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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