IIT Bombay and Vertiv have announced a strategic

IIT Bombay and Vertiv have announced a strategic collaboration aimed at advancing cooling solutions for AI-driven computing workloads in data centers, an increasingly critical area as India accelerates its digital and technological progress. This collaboration builds on Vertiv’s existing partnerships across various educational institutes and IITs across the country where we are developing the skilled workforce required for the operation and maintenance of data centers and helping the industry bridge its talent gap. As AI reshapes industries ranging from healthcare and manufacturing to financial services and urban development, the demand for dependable, high-performance computing infrastructure has increased significantly. Managing this surge requires fresh thinking, strong engineering foundations, and ollaborative innovation between industry and academia.

Speaking about the collaboration, Dr. A. S. Prasad, Vice President – Product Management and Engineering, Vertiv, said, “At Vertiv, we design and deliver critical power and cooling infrastructure for some of the world’s largest data centers and telecom networks. With decades of real-world experience keeping mission-critical systems running 24×7 across 130+ countries, we are happy to collaborate closely with Professor M. V. Rane from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, IIT Bombay,  one of India’s foremost experts in refrigeration and thermal systems. By combining his IIT Bombay’s deep scientific insights with Vertiv’s global engineering expertise and our real-time learnings from thousands of operating data centers, this collaboration will help prepare the next generation to be better equipped with industry-relevant knowledge. This is how we ensure that tomorrow’s thermal engineers, data center architects, and technology leaders carry both academic excellence and industry intuition in their DNA.

This partnership between Vertiv and IIT Bombay draws on the strengths of both institutions to address emerging challenges and prepare the next generation of engineers for the evolving digital landscape. Formalizing the initiative, the Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Prof. Shireesh Kedare, Director of IIT Bombay, and Mr. Subhasis Majumdar, Managing Director at Vertiv India, reinforcing a shared commitment to advancing India’s technological capabilities in line with the nation’s Make in India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat vision.

The technology being used in the current project collaboration is IIT Bombay’s Rotating Contacting Disk (RCD) system. It has substantially lower air-side pressure drops than conventional pad-type precoolers—reducing fan power and noise while improving Water Utilization Efficiency. It enables higher cycles of concentration and opens up the possibility to use recycled water or even seawater. IIT Bombay’s patented RCD technology, developed under Prof. M V Rane is already licensed for Wastewater Vapourization and CO₂ Scrubbing. It has also been demonstrated as an energy efficient cooling tower with diverse applications, delivering up to 4× energy savings in fan power while delivering better approach.

Commenting on the partnership, Prof. Shireesh Kedare, Director of IIT Bombay, said, “Our collaboration with Vertiv enables us to take research from labs to solutions with direct industrial relevance. As AI and high-performance computing systems evolve, there is a pressing need for approaches that are both technically robust and future ready. This initiative provides our students and researchers with an opportunity to work at the intersection of innovation and real-world application. Because when industry brings real-world experience and academia brings fearless curiosity, the result is always greater than the sum of its parts.”

The Vertiv-IIT Bombay partnership is designed to create long-term impact by giving students and researchers hands-on exposure to real engineering challenges, industry mentorship, and deeper engagement with emerging digital infrastructure technologies. Both organizations are aligned in their vision to model how academia and industry can work together to address complex engineering problems while contributing to India’s long-term digital ambitions. Vertiv will also explore new avenues of engagement across power, cooling and infrastructure domains to deepen this collaboration and drive innovation that benefits both the industry and society at large.

By NIROSHA GUPTA