Panduit will license IBM's Rear Door Heat eXchanger server cooling technology, which it plans to incorporate into its line of networking and electrical products for the data center.

"Thermal management in the data center has emerged as a key issue with our customers," says Jack Tison, VP of technology for Panduit, in a statement. "As data center compute densities and switch power supplies increase and the kilowatts per cabinet continue to grow, so does the strain on infrastructure and ultimately the IT budget."

The eXchanger was introduced last year by IBM and was originally designed specifically for IBM server cabinets. The eXchanger is a five-inch-deep cooling door that utilizes chilled water to dissipate heat generated from the back of computer systems and can reduce server heat output in data centers by up to 55%.

According to research firm Gartner, water cooling is significantly more efficient than air cooling because water can carry 3,500 times more heat than air at sea level. Products that cool racks from a local supply of chilled water are emerging that can cut cooling demand from 100% to 30% of computing power. Gartner further contends that such a reduction could enable a 50% increase in data center equipment power capacity.

IBM was among the first technology companies to use water cooling in computing with the first mainframe computers over 50 years ago.