Recent reports indicate that at Intel's Technology Innovation Conference, AAC Technologies (02018) signed an agreement with Intel. The two companies officially announced a liquid cooling ecosystem partnership. The list of cooperation items is extensive, spanning CPU cold plates, memory and SSD liquid cooling components, UQD/QD quick connectors, manifolds, and CDU coolant distribution units, extending all the way to full machine nodes and rack-level complete liquid cooling solutions. Richard Mok, Executive Director of AAC Technologies Group, and Chen Baoli, Vice President of Intel's Data Center Business Unit and General Manager of Intel China, signed the cooperation agreement. In simple terms, a CPU cold plate is essentially a dedicated "water cooling patch" for AI chips, designed specifically to rapidly dissipate heat and lower temperatures for high-power AI chips. A CDU coolant distribution unit is the core hub of the entire liquid cooling system, comparable to a data center's "pump room," responsible for overall water circulation and temperature control scheduling. Precision components such as UQD quick connectors and manifolds serve as the leak-proof structure and water distribution network of the liquid cooling system, effectively mitigating leakage risks and ensuring the long-term, stable operation of the entire liquid cooling system.

The complete coverage of the full set of core hardware sufficiently demonstrates Intel's full recognition of AAC Technologies' full-stack liquid cooling support capabilities. In fact, AAC Technologies itself is a global leader in thermal management. In consumer electronics, the company's VC vapor chambers have long maintained a position in the global top tier. In 2025, thermal solutions revenue reached 1.67 billion yuan, a significant increase of 410.9% year-on-year. In the first half of 2026, revenue reached 1.1 billion yuan, once again surging 400% year-on-year. Apple's iPhone 17 Pro series adopted VC vapor chambers for the first time, and the supplier was AAC Technologies. In October 2025, Apple's Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan visited China for the first time, making a special trip to AAC Technologies' Changzhou production base. During the 2026 Chain Expo, Apple once again invited AAC Technologies to exhibit jointly. This level of partnership recognition is rare among Apple's global supply chain vendors.

In the liquid cooling computing sector, since acquiring Yuandi Technology, AAC Technologies has successfully completed its leap from mobile consumer electronics thermal management to the server liquid cooling track, filling in the key gap in its computing thermal management business. Its 2.2MW and 2.6MW large-megawatt-class CDU products have achieved scaled mass production, with monthly capacity stable at over 600 units, and have fully commenced global volume deliveries. According to the company's management guidance at its earnings call, the liquid cooling business is targeting revenue of approximately 200 million yuan in 2026, with revenue scale expected to challenge the 1 billion yuan threshold in 2027. Currently, AAC Technologies' liquid cooling business has ranked among the top three in China's AI server liquid cooling market.

This signing with Intel further highlights the company's long-term ambitions. Its deeper value lies primarily in three core dimensions. First, AAC Technologies occupies a differentiated ecosystem position, possessing full-chain delivery capability from components to subsystem integration. Unlike players that only master technology and capacity in a single segment, AAC Technologies possesses rare full-stack capabilities, with core hardware such as cold plates, quick connectors, manifolds, and CDUs all independently developed and produced in-house, placing it among system-level solution providers. For downstream system integrators, there is no need to coordinate with multiple suppliers for repeated joint debugging, effectively avoiding high-frequency industry problems and significantly reducing project implementation and maintenance costs.

Second, solution validation follows Intel's unified technical standards, opening up platform-level certification channels. All testing specifications and reliability standards adopt Intel's unified technical system, becoming a core competitive advantage for subsequent expansion into overseas ODM and global computing projects. For server OEM manufacturers and leading cloud providers, hardware products that have passed Intel platform joint validation can significantly compress testing cycles, reduce validation costs, and notably enhance AAC Technologies' core advantage in global system project bidding.

Third, access to top-tier ecosystem resources opens up business incremental space with high certainty and a high ceiling. Currently, the global liquid cooling data center industry is entering a period of rapid expansion. In 2026, China's liquid cooling data center market size exceeded 23 billion yuan, while the global liquid cooling data center market size surpassed 110 billion yuan, indicating tremendous growth potential. In China's overall server market, servers equipped with Intel Xeon processors account for more than half of the share. AAC Technologies being included in Intel's ecosystem supplier candidate pool is expected to rapidly achieve scaled new revenue. At the same time, the company is following the overseas expansion to support global computing projects, combined with local overseas business development, further raising its overall growth ceiling.

The market's traditional perception of AAC Technologies has centered on mobile consumer electronics hardware. In recent years, AAC Technologies has accelerated its strategic upgrade, transforming into an AI perception infrastructure supplier, forming a business landscape that advances on dual fronts: computing infrastructure and consumer devices. Currently, AI-related businesses such as thermal management, high-speed optical communications, and humanoid robots, as well as new business segments including XR optics and automotive acoustics, have become core drivers of the company's revenue growth. According to the company's performance plan, the overall revenue scale of new businesses is expected to reach 8 billion to 9 billion yuan in 2027, continuously delivering long-term stable performance increments for the enterprise. Server liquid cooling is precisely a key link in the computing-side new business. This ecosystem cooperation with Intel is essentially another landmark milestone in the cross-track implementation of AAC Technologies' precision manufacturing capabilities. From this perspective, the deep business transformation underway at AAC Technologies may hold more long-term research value than the single news item of "partnering with Intel."