The Student Challenge That Could Launch Your Data Center Career

Oct 11, 2025

Breaking into the data center industry isn’t easy. It’s a world dominated by massive hyperscalers, deep technical expertise, and hidden supply chains. But now, ASME and IEEE are opening the doors to a new generation of engineers with something rare, a hands-on challenge that could literally launch your career.


They’ve announced a Student Liquid Cooling Design Challenge, and it’s one of the smartest initiatives I’ve seen to get young engineers into our industry.


This week on Ask Me Anything Data Centers (AMADC) - we look at a new liquid cooling cold plate design challenge for students



Cooling: Where Physics Meets the Future of Compute

If you’ve ever wondered where the real bottleneck of AI lies, it’s not just in chips. It’s in heat. The hotter GPUs and CPUs get, the harder it is to scale compute. That’s why liquid cooling, especially cold plate design, is the frontier of data center innovation.


The challenge asks students to design additively manufactured cold plates, the metal blocks that pull heat off chips. But here’s where it gets exciting: participants get access to Ansys CFD software, real thermal test data, and manufacturing from Fabricate Labs, a 3D metal printing company that’s pioneering new thermal geometries.


You’re not just submitting a CAD file, you’re designing something that could shape the next decade of cooling innovation.



Additive Manufacturing Changes Everything

Traditional cold plates were made with machining or skiving, limiting what you could build. But additive manufacturing has blown the doors open.


We’re seeing designs now with sub-millimeter microfins, metal foams, and AI-generated flow geometries that were literally impossible five years ago. Some even use machine learning-driven physics models to shape fluid turbulence zones, balancing pressure drop and heat transfer in ways that break every old rulebook.


That’s the kind of creativity this challenge encourages, physics-informed, AI-augmented, and manufacturable at scale.



Real IP, Real Experience, Real Exposure

Here’s what sets this challenge apart:

  • Students retain ownership of their IP (a huge deal).

  • The organizers and manufacturers get a non-exclusive license, but your work is yours.

  • Winners get their cold plates built and tested, and exposure to some of the top players in thermal design.


And with data centers projected to be a $10 trillion industry, this is the perfect moment to get in early.



Learn from Last Year’s Winners

Last year’s winning teams created wild, unconventional cold plates, from metal foam blocks that massively increase surface area, to microchannel fin grids that look like something out of a neural net.


Some even used AI-assisted CFD and additive geometries to guide turbulent flow exactly where it’s needed. These aren’t science projects. They’re the future of cooling, and possibly the blueprint for how AI hardware will stay efficient at the exascale.



How to Get Started

If you’re a student (or know one):

  1. Go read the challenge brief from ASME and IEEE, here is the link: https://sites.google.com/site/k16asme/competition

  2. Practice your skills in CFD tools, Ansys is provided.

  3. Find ways to leverage physics-informed AI models to explore ideas.

  4. Connect with mentors. reach out to data center professionals on LinkedIn (most are happy to help).

  5. Submit a design that makes them say: “We didn’t think that was possible.”



Final Thoughts

It’s rare to find an opportunity that connects engineering fundamentals, AI, and data center infrastructure all at once. This one does.


If you’re a student who’s curious, this could be your entry point into one of the most exciting, and impactful, industries on the planet.


And if you’re already in the field, share this challenge. The next big breakthrough might just come from a university lab or a 3D printer.


🎙️ AMADC — Ask Me Anything Data Centers
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Connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abhisheksastri/