Thermal management products maker Modine Manufacturing Co., which has been growing its data center cooling business in recent years, said it purchased intellectual property and other unspecified assets from a Texas firm that specializes in liquid-immersion cooling technology for data centers.
Financial terms of the transaction with TMGcore of Plano, Texas, were not disclosed.
In response to a Milwaukee Business Journal request for more details on the transaction, Modine said Wednesday the company “purchased the IP and other specific assets of TMGcore and not the legal entity.”
Racine-based Modine’s (NYSE: MOD) investment in liquid immersion cooling technology advances the company’s strategy of growing its global data center product offerings and helps achieve Modine’s long-term growth targets, said president and CEO Neil Brinker.
"This investment strengthens Modine's position in the rapidly growing data center market, providing our customers with advanced solutions to support high-density, accelerated computing applications, such as generative artificial intelligence, 5G and machine learning," Brinker said in a press release.
Representatives of TMGcore didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. The company’s CEO is J.D. Enright.
TMGcore was founded in 2018, and its early activities included software that mines cryptocurrency. The company exhibited its cooling tank during the Bitcoin Conference in April 2022 and touts its “disruptive two-phase liquid immersion-cooled” technology.
TMGcore’s solutions use non-conductive, chemically inert, non-corrosive fluids, the company said in a November 2022 press release. The liquids are similar to water and fully immerse products where the liquid’s boiling point properties remove the heat from the electronics efficiently without the use of large heat sinks, TMGcore said.
The Texas firm says it is trusted by well-known customers including Dell and 3M and also has worked with Solvay chemicals and Unicom Engineering.
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Modine executives say their company is focused on growth opportunities in the data center market. Modine has expanded its product offerings and is manufacturing and selling more data center cooling products in North America, the company said in its most recent Form 10-K annual report.
The data center cooling business provides sustainable cooling solutions for data center markets not only in North America but also in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Modine said.
“We provide data center cooling solutions that feature low global warming potential refrigerants, free cooling technology and lower water consumption, enabling our customers and end-users to meet their environmental and sustainability goals,” Modine said.
For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2023, Modine said data center cooling represented nearly 7% of the company’s overall revenue, or $154 million, compared with $96.3 million the previous fiscal year. Through the first six months of fiscal 2023, Modine recorded $147 million revenue from data center cooling compared with about $67 million a year earlier.
Last fall, Modine opened a new chiller plant in Rockbridge County, Virginia, complete with state-of-the art testing facilities, to grow its data center business, the company said in its annual report to shareholders. Modine also announced winning a significant order with Corscale to support the expansion of data center operations in northern Virginia.
“Sales of our data center products increased by 60% this past year, and we are expecting further double-digit gains in fiscal 2024,” Modine said.
