Johnson Controls Unveils Air-Cooled Chiller Guide for AI Data Centres

Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI), a global leader in thermal management, mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency, and decarbonization, is expanding its AI Factory Reference Design Guides with the launch of its second guide, focused on air-cooled chillers. Building on the company's water‑cooled chiller guide released in February, this latest blueprint marks the next step in what will be the industry's most comprehensive set of global design guides mapping the full data centre thermal chain — with additional guides covering absorption chillers and direct‑to‑chip liquid cooling to follow.

As AI brings new scale and complexity to data centre design, operators are facing mounting challenges, including the power needed for cooling systems, rising cooling‑loop temperatures, efficiency losses from heat islands and limited water availability. Johnson Controls' AI Factory Reference Design Guide Series addresses this challenge by outlining how designers and operators can achieve industry‑leading energy and water efficiency and minimise noise impact on surrounding communities while remaining adaptable to different climates, workloads and growth paths.

The new guide supports the scalable design of data centres of all sizes, up to a 1-GW AI factory, utilising air-cooled chillers. It outlines a comprehensive thermal cooling architecture that integrates high‑efficiency air-cooled YORK centrifugal chillers (including its YDAM and YVAM chillers), fan coil walls (FCWs) and coolant distribution units (CDUs) to manage both air‑ and liquid‑cooled IT loads. The guide provides sizing references for 220MW compute clusters, including recommended design temperatures and operating conditions across each stage of the thermal chain.

Key outcomes enabled by the design guide include:

• 50MW returned to the AI factory through the implementation of bifurcated loops for air- and liquid-cooling systems.
• 32% improvement in annual energy consumption through the intelligent utilisation of redundant chillers.
• 20MW peak power savings by quantifying and mitigating heat island effects of air-cooled chiller plants.
• Zero water usage saves over 12 million gallons daily by eliminating the need for cooling towers to produce facility water.
• 30% Coefficient of Performance (COP) improvement and 27% fewer chillers from raising the chilled water temperature to support warm-water Technology Cooling System (TCS) loops.

"At gigawatt scale, AI factories require a fundamentally different way of thinking about infrastructure," said Austin Domenici, president, Johnson Controls Global Data Centre Solutions. "The future requires designing integrated systems that can scale predictably, perform efficiently and adapt as technology evolves. This guide reflects how Johnson Controls helps customers plan holistically for AI growth, from design to operations, anywhere in the world."