Liquid Cooling Supply Chain Crunches Amid Order Boom, Domestic Substitution Nears Turning Point

Recently, Vertiv, a leading enterprise in the data center infrastructure sector, released its 2026 H1 financial report. While the company’s revenue and profits remain in the top tier of the industry, its core financial indicators failed to meet market expectations, leading to a significant post-earnings stock price correction.

Supply Chain Bottlenecks Constrain Delivery Despite Sufficient Orders

Vertiv’s overseas order backlog reflects a common industry challenge: liquid cooling integrators are struggling with delivery delays despite ample market demand. Key components such as liquid cooling pumps, plate heat exchangers, and FD83 ball valves face extended delivery cycles of 3-4 months, with upstream manufacturers’ capacities fully booked. This has shifted the industry’s competitive focus from technology advantages to supply chain integration and capacity locking capabilities.

Compressed AIDC Delivery Cycles Exacerbate Supply Chain Pressure

Driven by massive AI infrastructure investments (projected at $2.5 trillion globally from 2025 to 2027) and rapid iterations of high-power chips, AIDC project delivery cycles have shrunk from 16-24 months to 3-6 months. Hyperscale cloud providers like Google have set strict delivery requirements (e.g., 12-week delivery for 2MW CDU products), further straining the supply chain.

Short-Term Supply-Demand Imbalance Persists Amid Gradual Capacity Expansion

The liquid cooling market has seen rapid growth in less than 18 months, but most manufacturers hesitated to expand capacity in 2024. Large-scale capacity expansion only started in late 2025, and new capacity ramping up takes time due to strict reliability testing and customer certification requirements. Thus, supply shortages are expected to continue in the short term.

Domestic Substitution Gains Momentum with Key Breakthroughs

While foreign brands dominate the high-end market due to long-standing certification barriers, domestic manufacturers have made significant progress in 2026 H1. Companies like Dayuan Pump and Feilong have successfully entered Google’s qualified supplier list, marking a crucial step in import substitution. With more certifications and project validations expected in H2 2026, domestic liquid cooling suppliers are poised to accelerate their market penetration.

Jiayida (Suzhou) Fluid Power Technology Co., Ltd. focuses on providing one-stop liquid cooling fluid system solutions and services for data center scenarios. The product portfolio covers OCP-standard UQD, UQDB and BMQC quick disconnect couplings, water manifold assemblies, Continental EPDM hoses and hose assemblies, FF9 full-flow double interlock quick disconnect ball valves as an alternative to FD83 series products, API heat exchangers, Gates data center-dedicated EPDM hoses, as well as WIKA pressure gauges and sensors from Germany.