As the global race to build faster and more powerful AI systems intensifies, one challenge looms large, heat. Data centers are becoming energy-hungry behemoths, and keeping them cool is turning into one of the toughest engineering puzzles of this decade. A Boston-based startup, Alloy Enterprises, believes it has found a breakthrough.
When Nvidia unveiled its upcoming Rubin GPU series in March, the tech world took notice, not just for its performance, but for its power draw. The Ultra version, expected in 2027, could consume as much as 600 kilowatts per rack, nearly double what high-end EV chargers can deliver. That level of energy means enormous heat output, and traditional cooling systems can’t keep up.
The Metal Solution to a Hot Problem
Alloy Enterprises has created a novel manufacturing process that transforms sheets of copper into solid cooling plates. These plates aren’t just for GPUs, they also manage the heat from supporting components like memory and networking chips, which make up around 20% of a server’s cooling needs.
“When racks were pulling 120 kilowatts, we didn’t worry much about that 20%,” said Ali Forsyth, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “But as we approach 600 kilowatts, everything needs liquid cooling, even parts like RAM and networking chips.”
Unlike traditional machining or 3D printing, Alloy’s technique, called stack forging, bonds layers of metal together using a mix of heat and pressure. The process yields a seamless, solid metal plate capable of handling high liquid-cooling pressures without leaks.
How Stack Forging Outperforms the Old Way
Conventional cold plates are made by machining two halves and then sintering them together, a method that often creates seams prone to leaks. Alloy’s diffusion bonding process eliminates those weak points, creating a one-piece structure.
Stack forging also allows for ultra-small internal features, as tiny as 50 microns, about half the width of a human hair. This enables more efficient coolant flow, resulting in 35% better thermal performance compared to competing solutions.
Precision Engineering Meets Software
Alloy’s production process begins with rolls of copper, which are laser-cut and coated with a bonding inhibitor on areas that shouldn’t fuse. The slices are then perfectly aligned and pressed under intense heat and pressure, producing a single, seamless block of metal.
Customers provide key dimensions, while Alloy’s proprietary software helps design plates optimized for its unique process. The startup originally worked with aluminum but transitioned to copper after rising interest from data center operators seeking superior heat conduction and corrosion resistance.
A Quiet Power Behind the Scenes
While Forsyth declined to name clients, she hinted that Alloy Enterprises is already collaborating with “all the big names” in the data center industry. After officially unveiling its copper cold plates in June, the response was overwhelming.
As AI infrastructure grows in complexity and energy demand, Alloy Enterprises’ innovative metal stacking technology could play a pivotal role in keeping the next generation of supercomputers from overheating, and in doing so, may quietly help sustain the future of AI itself.
