As India positions itself as a dominant powerhouse in the global digital economy, the race to build robust artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure has reached critical velocity. To power high-density computing workloads without grid-straining energy costs, precision engineering must replace outdated cooling systems.
In a major development for India’s deeptech and AI-enabling hardware ecosystem, KuhlTherm, an advanced precision liquid cooling technology company, has officially announced a $1.1 million Seed funding round led by Arkam Ventures.
This milestone capital injection highlights a major structural transition in the Indian data centre industry: the shift from generic, room-level air cooling to highly precise, chip-level liquid thermal management engineered for extreme operating conditions.
Strategic Capital Allocation: Accelerating R&D and Strategic Partnerships
The newly raised $1.1 million Seed fund will act as a launchpad for KuhlTherm as it prepares to scale its operations domestically and tap into international AI infrastructure hubs. The company has outlined a clear roadmap for capital deployment:
Accelerating Product Development & In-house Manufacturing: Scaling the production of their proprietary Direct-to-Chip cold plates, Rear Door Heat Exchangers (RDHx), and Coolant Distribution Units (CDUs).
Strengthening R&D and Testing Infrastructure: Expanding India’s only integrated liquid cooling validation lab to simulate and test extreme high-performance computing (HPC) environments.
Team Expansion: Recruiting top-tier thermal simulation engineers, PhD specialists, and business development leads.
Certifications and Global Standards: Pursuing international compliance and quality certifications required for rapid integration into hyperscale and enterprise facilities worldwide.
Strategic Ecosystem Partnerships: Forging key alliances with chipmakers, server original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and global data centre operators.
The AI Heat Wave: Why Traditional Air Cooling is No Longer Enough
The rapid adoption of AI models, complex machine learning training, and high-performance graphics processing units (GPUs) has triggered an unprecedented thermal crisis in data centre design.
Legacy cooling systems—which rely on moving chilled air across massive rooms—were designed for traditional server racks consuming 5 kW to 15 kW. However, modern AI and GPU-centric clusters push rack-level power densities past 100 kW. This makes air cooling physically incapable of preventing thermal throttling, which degrades server performance and compromises uptime.
Data centre operators are actively searching for systems that extract heat as close to the silicon as possible. This paradigm shift is pushing liquid cooling from a niche hardware luxury into a baseline requirement for modern digital infrastructure.
Core Product Portfolio: Integrating Hardware and AI-Native Thermal Intelligence
Founded in 2025 with its headquarters in Ahmedabad, KuhlTherm offers a comprehensive, full-stack product suite engineered to tackle thermal loads from the silicon chip up to the chiller loop.
Their technology stack includes:
Direct-to-Chip (DTC) Cooling: Patented mesh-based cold plates designed to tackle localized hotspots on high-power XPUs (from 300W up to 2,500W per plate), providing targeted heat extraction where compute demands are highest.
Rear Door Heat Exchangers (RDHx ProSeries): A modular passive or active door system scaling in 20 kW blocks to 100 kW per rack door. It captures heat directly at the back of the rack, minimizing the need for expensive facility retrofits.
Coolant Distribution Units (CDUs): Sits between the central building water loop and the localized liquid systems, delivering highly precise flow, pressure, and temperature controls in blocks up to 1.5 MW.
Immersion Cooling Systems: Advanced setups designed for dense deployments, where entire servers are submerged in a non-conductive, dielectric fluid.
NexusFlow OS: A proprietary, AI-native cooling intelligence platform. NexusFlow runs a continuous live feedback loop from chip to chiller and grid to rack, anticipating thermal spikes based on compute load predictions to dynamically optimize energy and fluid flow.
Engineered for Indian Realities, Built for Global Markets
What makes KuhlTherm unique is its localization and commitment to vertically integrated, India-led engineering.
The company manufactures its core hardware components—including RDHxs, CDUs, manifolds, and universal quick disconnects—entirely in-house. This deep integration ensures precise control over manufacturing quality and accelerates product delivery times.
Furthermore, KuhlTherm’s hardware and software are specifically engineered to tackle real-world operating environments, which often feature:
High Ambient Temperatures: Performing reliably in hot and humid climates without relying on power-hungry, water-evaporative cooling towers.
Power Grid Fluctuations: Protecting delicate liquid pumps and control valves from erratic electrical grids via robust physical architectures.
Local Serviceability: Delivering faster deployments, lower total cost of ownership (TCO), and prompt local maintenance to ensure high uptime for regional operators.
Industry Perspectives: Shaping the Future of Green AI
"AI infrastructure is pushing data centres beyond the limits of conventional air cooling. As rack densities rise, cooling can no longer remain a room-level problem. It must be solved at the chip, rack and data centre level through precision liquid cooling," explains Shailesh Bishnoi, Founder & CEO of KuhlTherm.
"India is entering a major data centre buildout cycle, and cooling decisions being made today will define the efficiency and sustainability of this infrastructure for years to come. Our goal is to build liquid cooling technology that is engineered for Indian conditions, locally serviceable, cost-efficient and capable of supporting the next generation of AI and high-density computing workloads."
Highlighting the environmental importance of KuhlTherm’s technology, Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures, added:
"AI infrastructure growth is putting pressure on resources like water and energy. The path to greener AI urgently needs highly efficient cooling systems with practical manufacturability. KuhlTherm is addressing this critical infrastructure gap with cutting edge IP, India-led engineering and a product roadmap for high-density data centre environments. We are seeing huge demand for KuhlTherm’s products not only in India but in AI hubs around the world".
About KuhlTherm
KuhlTherm is an advanced precision liquid cooling technology company specializing in high-efficiency thermal management solutions for next-generation, high-performance computing environments. Headquartered in Ahmedabad, KuhlTherm’s hardware-and-software-integrated ecosystem protects critical computing infrastructure, reduces energy footprints, and provides scalable cooling for intensive AI workloads.
About Arkam Ventures
Arkam Ventures is a premier early-stage venture capital firm that partners with non-consensus founders to build category-defining technology platforms powering India's digital economy. With a builder-first philosophy, Arkam combines smart capital with rigorous product and operational guidance. Its portfolio of structural disruptors includes Skyroot Aerospace, Jar, KreditBee, Wint Wealth, and SpotDraft.
