IIT Gandhinagar to develop country’s first own cooling tech for EVs, AI infra, trains

An Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) research team has won a Rs 20 lakh seed grant to develop the country’s first indigenous cooling technology for electric vehicles (EVs), trains, high-performance electronics, and artificial intelligence infrastructure. The technology can address two major issues: cooling of the fast-growing AI-driven data centres, and safety concerns around EV battery thermal management, IITGN stated. The researchers won the grant on Tuesday at ‘MATRIx (Materials Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Expo) 2026’, organised by the Indian Institute of Metals (IIM), the professional body for metallurgists.“This indigenous manufacturing technology could help address industrial thermal management through a new generation of liquid cold plates. Titled ‘Advanced Chill Tech,’ this innovation rethinks how liquid cold plates are manufactured, creating an avenue for an affordable, scalable and sustainable innovation,” the research team claimed. The team has also filed a patent application jointly with its industry partner, Epsilon Engineering Pvt. Ltd. The technology has also reached Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 7, with prototypes successfully validated in an operational environment. The largest prototype can withstand pressure of more than 35 bars (well above industry requirements) and has passed fatigue and tensile testing. The project was led by Amit Arora, an associate professor at IITGN’s Department of Materials Engineering, together with Prachi Sharma and Rizwan Qureshi, a final-year doctoral student in the department. How it works Liquid cold plates are metal components containing internal channels through which coolant flows to extract heat from high-power electronic systems. They are widely used in battery thermal management systems, data centres, railways, power electronics, defence, aerospace, and other applications where excessive heat can affect performance, safety, and reliability. Elaborating further, Arora said, “The success rate of brazing (a process to make the cold plates) is only about 40 to 60 per cent, with a large fraction of plates being scrapped for hidden defects or leaks. With the cold plates being manufactured by fusing multiple joints, any potential leak is not a nuisance but an electrical and thermal hazard.”Story continues below this ad Additionally, due to the lack of indigenous infrastructure for manufacturing vacuum-brazed components, India continues to rely heavily on imported technologies for these products. Arora, who also leads Advanced Materials Processing Research Group (AMPRG) at IIT Gandhinagar, added, “To overcome these limitations, we have developed a manufacturing approach based on ‘Friction Stir Channeling’ (FSC). Instead of joining multiple components, the process creates integrated internal cooling channels within a single metal plate using a rotating tool that plastically deforms the material without melting it.” Rizwan Qureshi, who led the manufacturing process development, added, “Winning the ₹20 lakh seed grant… will enable us to bridge the gap between laboratory research and market deployment. The funding will support larger-scale testing, intellectual property development, product refinement, and commercialisation efforts.” “One of its immediate applications is in railways, where liquid cold plates are used to cool high-power electronic systems (IGBTs) in modern high-speed trains and metro coaches. The IITGN team has developed and tested prototypes for high-speed rail applications. In addition, the technology is well-suited for EV battery thermal management, AI-driven data centres, GPU cooling, power electronics, defence and aerospace systems, and metallurgical industries. By replacing a multi-step, energy-intensive manufacturing process with a single-step solid-state process, the technology reduces manufacturing time, energy consumption, material waste, and carbon emissions while supporting the objectives of ‘Make in India’,” Arora added.