Hailei Laser: Empowering the Global Data Center Liquid Cooling Industry with Customized Laser Welding Solutions

With the explosive growth of AI computing power, data centers are undergoing a profound transformation from air cooling to liquid cooling. Liquid cooling technology, especially cold plate liquid cooling, has become the mainstream choice for solving the heat dissipation bottleneck of high-density computing power due to its efficiency and flexibility. In this technological revolution, the reliability of the liquid cooling system is paramount, and its core lies in the precision manufacturing process—laser welding.

The current liquid cooling market features a coexistence of copper and aluminum materials. They are not in a relationship of substitution, but rather a complementary symbiosis for different computing power scenarios.

• Copper Liquid Cooling Plates: With their superior thermal conductivity (2.2 times that of aluminum), excellent thermal fatigue resistance, and a service life of up to 15 years, copper plates are the "essential" choice for high-end AI training clusters, national supercomputing centers, and other ultra-high-density, high-reliability computing scenarios. They can effectively handle heat dissipation challenges where single-chip power consumption exceeds 300W and even reaches the kilowatt level, ensuring stable computing power output.
• Aluminum Liquid Cooling Plates: With their advantages of being lightweight and low-cost, they dominate the market for general-purpose server clusters, edge computing, and energy storage liquid cooling, which are characterized by low-to-medium power and large-scale standardization. The popularization of aluminum plates has significantly lowered the threshold for liquid cooling technology adoption and is the absolute main force in the mass market.

Whether it is copper plates pursuing ultimate performance or aluminum plates focusing on cost-effectiveness, the welding quality during their manufacturing process directly determines the final reliability of the liquid cooling system. Traditional welding processes (such as TIG welding), due to their large heat-affected zones, susceptibility to deformation, and poor weld consistency, can no longer meet the stringent requirements of liquid cooling components for "thin-walled, precision, high sealing, and low deformation."

Laser welding technology, with its precise energy control and automation capabilities, has become the key to solving these pain points.

1. Micron-level Deformation Control, Safeguarding Heat Dissipation Efficiency: For every 0.1mm deviation on the cold plate's mating surface, the contact thermal resistance can increase by over 10%, leading to GPU computing power loss. Laser welding has an extremely small heat-affected zone and can control welding deformation at the micron level, ensuring a perfect fit between the cold plate and the designed chip, thus safeguarding the baseline of heat dissipation performance.
2. Metallurgical-grade Weld Seam Density, Eliminating Leakage Risks: Leakage in a liquid cooling system is a disaster for data centers. The metallurgically bonded weld seams formed by laser welding are far denser than those from traditional processes, with leakage rates as low as 10⁻⁹ Pa·m³/s. This is particularly crucial for immersion liquid cooling systems using expensive fluorinated liquids, as it can significantly reduce medium loss and downtime risks.
3. Residue-free Clean Weld Seams, Extending System Lifespan: Slag and oxide scales inside weld seams can contaminate the coolant and accelerate electrochemical corrosion. Laser welding requires no flux, and the inner wall is smooth and residue-free after welding, ensuring the cleanliness of the fluid circuit from the source and extending the entire system's service life.

Facing diverse welding requirements for different materials like copper and aluminum, and various components such as cold plates, piping, manifolds, and CDUs, standardized equipment is often inadequate. Hailei Laser understands this well. We specialize in providing customized laser welding equipment, tailoring optimal solutions for our clients' core processes.

• For Highly Reflective Materials: Whether it's pure copper or aluminum alloy, we provide advanced process configurations including blue laser and oscillating beam to effectively solve problems like porosity and unstable penetration depth in welding highly reflective materials, ensuring weld quality.
• For Complex Structures: For irregularly shaped cold plates, multi-branch manifolds, and precision piping assemblies, we provide multi-axis robotic welding workstations, combined with customized fixtures, to achieve automated, high-precision welding of complex seams.
• For Mass Production Needs: We can integrate functions like visual positioning, melt pool monitoring, and post-weld inspection to create a full-process intelligent production line from automatic loading/unloading to finished product inspection, helping clients improve yield rates and achieve large-scale, stable delivery.

As the global data center liquid cooling industry moves towards refinement and standardization, Hailei Laser is willing to leverage its professional customization capabilities to become the most reliable partner for global liquid cooling equipment manufacturers, jointly meeting the challenges of the AI computing power era.