AHEAD's 10MW 68,000 Sq Ft Facility in Libertyville Powers AI and HPC Growth

AHEAD unveiled plans for a new integration facility focused on rack-scale, direct-to-chip, liquid-cooled infrastructure.

The specialized 10-megawatt, 68,000-square-foot facility, located in Libertyville, Illinois, is AHEAD’s strategic response to the surging demand for AI and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure. Set to begin operations in 2025, the facility will create approximately 130 tech manufacturing jobs and strengthen AHEAD’s position as a leader in AI and HPC infrastructure solutions.

This expansion adds to AHEAD’s existing Libertyville campus, which includes multiple integration and distribution facilities. The company also runs integration facilities across the U.K. and EU.

“As AI and HPC workloads continue to scale in complexity, the underlying technology drives unprecedented power and cooling demands—testing the limits of traditional data center infrastructure,” said Chris Tucker, executive vice president of AHEAD Foundry, the company’s custom hardware appliance and integration business unit. “Demand for infrastructure solutions capable of scaling seamlessly to support their most intensive workloads is growing exponentially with our clients, especially within hyperscalers, financial services, healthcare, life sciences and research universities. This facility allows AHEAD to service these clients and enables them to take maximum advantage of high-density GPU-enabled servers.”

The facility will specialize in air and direct-to-chip, liquid-cooled rack integration projects that offer advantages for enterprises with AI workload and HPC needs including:

Superior Heat Management
Direct-to-chip liquid cooling dissipates heat up to a thousand times more efficiently than air cooling. This is crucial for handling the massive heat outputs of GPU-intensive workloads.
Reduced Energy Consumption
Liquid cooling drastically reduces power usage compared to air cooling, delivering cost benefits and supporting sustainability goals.
Space Optimization & High Rack Density
Liquid-cooled racks enable significantly higher compute density, maximizing available floor space for AI and HPC environments. This approach allows for seamless scalability and performance gains without increasing the data center footprint.
Lower Water & Carbon Footprint
Direct-to-chip cooling can achieve power usage effectiveness (PUE) values as low as 1.035, compared to up to 2.0 for typical air-cooled data centers.

Industry analysts underscore the urgency of addressing hyperscale infrastructure demands. According to an October 2024 report from Gartner, by 2028, 25 percent of new servers will be equipped with dedicated workload accelerators to support generative AI workloads, highlighting the necessity for efficient cooling technologies.

The new facility will also include a 60-rack innovation lab. The hands-on environment will enable organizations to benchmark performance gains across diverse AI and HPC architectures, supporting various accelerated compute, storage and network architectures. The lab designs feature rack-scale, direct-to-chip liquid cooling, a liquid-to-air coolant distribution unit (CDU) and a liquid-to-liquid CDU connected to chilled facility water. Real-world deployment scenarios and side-by-side thermal efficiency and power consumption comparisons will enable clients to make data-driven infrastructure decisions.

To learn more about AHEAD’s Libertyville campus, infrastructure design, integration and deployment capabilities, visit the website here. ahead.com/ahead-foundry/.