Karman Industries Launches the HPU: A New Category in Thermal Infrastructure for Giga-Scale AI

Karman’s Heat Processing Unit (HPU) revolutionizes the thermal architecture of giga-scale data centers for the latest AI factories, shrinking exterior mechanical footprint by up to 80% and reducing energy consumption by more than 25% to accelerate global deployments.

• Global AI data center thermal management demand to surpass 100GW by 2030, straining supply chains worldwide
• HPUs provide flexible management of thermal loads while enabling peak performance with the highest energy efficiency and zero water consumption
• Team comprised of leading technologists from SpaceX, Rocket Lab & GE

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Karman Industries today announced the launch of the Heat Processing Unit (HPU), a modular 10MW integrated thermal platform engineered to solve the "speed-to-power" crisis facing AI hyperscalers. By consolidating massive heat management infrastructure into high-density modular packages, Karman's HPU unlocks rapid deployments while eliminating water consumption. HPUs optimize energy consumption, providing the most efficient cooling while unlocking heat reuse for power generation or district heating.

The company also disclosed a $20 million Series A led by Riot Ventures in September 2025, bringing total funding to over $30 million. Other major participants included Sunflower Capital, Space VC, Wonder Ventures, and former Intel and VMware CEO, Pat Gelsinger.

From Cooling to Processing: The Rise of the HPU

As AI clusters scale toward multi-gigawatt capacity, utilizing the latest architectures from chip OEMs like Nvidia, heat is no longer only a bottleneck but also an asset to leverage. Traditional designs require sprawling mechanical yards filled with 500+ disparate chillers and dry coolers, necessitating miles of complex piping and months of on-site assembly. With such designs, data centers use energy to remove heat. Karman has been working in the background for 18 months to create the HPU that efficiently manages and utilizes this heat.

“In the race to stand up AI capacity, time is the most expensive variable,” said David Tearse, CEO and Co-Founder of Karman Industries. “We’ve moved beyond the era of legacy chillers to HPUs. By shrinking the footprint of the mechanical yard by 80%, we don’t just save land; we eliminate the ‘snowball effect’ of infrastructure complexity, allowing hyperscalers to move from 'shovels in the ground' to 'chips in the rack' many months faster while unlocking additional compute.”

One System, Zero Compromises

Karman’s HPU architecture works efficiently with gigascale AI factories in any location or ambient conditions. HPUs interact with the facility's cooling and power streams to optimize the Power Utilization Effectiveness (PUE). In hot ambient conditions, HPUs provide the most efficient cooling with zero water consumption, unlocking stranded compute.

For systems within the data center that require lower temperature cooling loops for operations such as HBM4 (High Bandwidth Memory 4), HPUs repurpose high-temperature waste heat from GPU clusters like the NVIDIA Blackwell or Rubin platforms into cooling at less than 30ºC. Similarly, in colder ambient conditions, HPUs process waste heat from compute racks to provide electricity for operations or high-grade heat for district heating and other use cases.

“We applied an aerospace systems-engineering approach to data center thermodynamics,” said CJ Kalra, CTO and Co-Founder. “Our team designed HPUs to process the extreme heat of gigascale racks using a first principles based approach. HPUs enable heat reuse and PUE ratings quickly approaching 1 without water consumption or PFAS chemicals for AI factories. Keeping up with the latest in technology, the HPU leverages 800V DC architecture while borrowing the latest innovations in rocket turbomachinery like metal 3D-printing, and electric vehicles innovations like high-speed motors & Silicon-Carbide power electronics technology."

Key Advantages of the Karman HPU Platform:

• Modular Scalability: 10MW HPUs simplify site design, dramatically reducing the number of units to be installed, piped, and wired on-site.
• Radical Footprint Reduction: Shrinks the exterior mechanical yard by 60% to 80%, freeing up valuable land for additional compute capacity.
• Maximized AI ROI: Optimizing thermal architecture to maximize resource allocation towards compute.
• Zero Water Consumption (WUE 0): Achieves zero water consumption across all operating conditions, future-proofing facilities against water-scarcity regulations and community pushback.

“Thermal has become one of the most serious constraints facing data center infrastructure,” said Will Coffield, Co-Founder and General Partner at Riot Ventures. “Karman is bringing an elite engineering team to bear on the thermal sector. Their HPU architecture is unleashing this AI infrastructure supercycle from its greatest physical bottleneck."

Scaling for the Gigawatt Era

Karman will begin initial customer deliveries in Q3 2026 from its Los Angeles-based GigaWerx manufacturing facility. Designed for 1GW of annual production, the facility is part of a roadmap to quickly reach 4GW of annual capacity to meet the global surge in AI factory demand.

About Karman Industries: Karman Industries is a thermal technology company building the infrastructure for the AI era. Based in Los Angeles, Karman’s mission is to deliver the HPU (Heat Processing Unit), a high-performance, modular thermal platform that enables the rapid and sustainable growth of hyperscale compute. Backed by leading investors Riot Ventures, Space VC, Wonder Ventures, Sunflower Capital, 8090 Industries, Knollwood, Infinite Capital, and High Water.