Corintis, a Swiss semiconductor cooling startup, has raised $24 million in fresh funding and brought Intel’s new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, onto its board, as surging demand for artificial intelligence chips fuels the hunt for more efficient ways to manage heat.
The Lausanne-based company, spun out of Switzerland’s Federal Institute of Technology in 2022, develops rapid liquid-cooling systems designed to keep increasingly power-hungry chips from overheating. Unlike conventional methods that pump cold air through data centers, or liquid systems that cool only the chip’s surface, Corintis channels liquid directly through tiny etched pathways inside the chip itself. The company says the approach reduces hot spots, improves efficiency, and consumes less water and energy.
Tests by Microsoft, a Corintis customer, have shown the system can be up to three times more efficient than standard cooling techniques. Demand for such solutions is growing as AI chips from Nvidia and other manufacturers consume unprecedented amounts of power, straining both chip performance and global power grids.
Register for Tekedia Mini-MBA edition 19 (Feb 9 – May 2, 2026): big discounts for early bird.
Tekedia AI in Business Masterclass opens registrations.
Join Tekedia Capital Syndicate and co-invest in great global startups.
Register for Tekedia AI Lab: From Technical Design to Deployment (next edition begins Jan 24 2026).
“Right now we are able to produce around 100,000 cold plates per year. Next year we are ramping up to around 1 million cold plates per year,” co-founder and CEO Remco van Erp told Reuters.
Corintis manufactures its cold plates in Europe and uses custom software to automate design, enabling the systems to serve as drop-in upgrades to existing liquid-cooling setups or be built directly into chips.
The latest Series A round, led by venture capital firm BlueYard Capital, valued Corintis at around $400 million, a source familiar with the matter said. Other backers include Founderful, Acequia Capital, Celsius Industries, and XTX Ventures. The round brings Corintis’s total funding to $33.4 million, including a pre-seed raise.
The company also bolstered its leadership with high-profile industry figures. Lip-Bu Tan, who became Intel’s CEO in March after years leading Walden International and serving as Cadence Design Systems’ chairman, joined Corintis’s board earlier this year. Geoff Lyon, founder and former CEO of liquid-cooling pioneer CoolIT, also joined as a director.
Corintis plans to use the fresh capital to expand its team from 55 to 70 employees by the end of 2025, scale up its manufacturing capacity, and establish U.S. offices to support its growing base of customers there.
The investment comes amid a broader scramble for next-generation cooling technologies. As AI adoption accelerates, hyperscale data centers are grappling with soaring electricity costs and mounting climate concerns. Traditional cooling methods, long designed for CPUs running at lower power levels, are increasingly inadequate for advanced GPUs and AI accelerators running at hundreds of watts each.
Analysts say startups like Corintis could play a crucial role in redefining the infrastructure of AI computing. Liquid cooling isn’t just about keeping chips from melting anymore — it’s about sustaining the economics of AI. Thus, it is believed that without breakthroughs in cooling, the power demands of next-generation chips risk outpacing what data centers and power grids can deliver.
Looking ahead, having Intel’s chief executive on Corintis’ board underscores the strategic importance of its technology. The company is entering a fiercely competitive space that includes established liquid-cooling providers and experimental approaches from chipmakers themselves. But if its etched-in cooling channels scale as promised, Corintis could become a vital enabler for the next wave of AI hardware.