DC2 — Grid-Interactive Thermal Flexibility for EDCs
Host: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland — POWERlab (Institute of Electrical Engineering).
Work package: WP1 (Programmable Energy-Integrated Infrastructure)
Duration and start: 36 months, full-time; start between February and September 2027 (latest start September 2027).
The project
Cooling can use up to 40% of an edge datacenter’s energy, yet standard cooling reacts too slowly to sell valuable grid services. In this project you create a new kind of cooling that can change its power use quickly and on demand.
You will use multi-level microfluidics — networks of tiny cooling channels developed at EPFL — that adapt to the chip’s real heat map in real time. The result is cooling that behaves like a “thermal battery”: its power draw can be shifted up or down on purpose, with predictable, high-efficiency performance.
What you will work on:
- Develop a multi-fidelity optimization method that co-designs the microchannels from the processor’s power maps.
- Design and build actuation parts (for example micro-pumps and valves) for adaptive cooling.
- Build predictive thermal models for pre-cooling and coasting strategies.
What you will deliver:
- A multi-level microchannel design for power-aware cooling.
- A liquid-cooled prototype with its measured flexibility documented through experiments.
- A report that quantifies the efficiency gains possible with predictive thermal management, based on testbed data.
Secondments
You will spend two research visits with partners in the network:
- Corintis (Lausanne, Switzerland) — 3 months from around January 2028 (industry), with Andrea Francescon: test liquid cooling on Corintis’s immersion-cooling testbeds and show flexibility by shifting heat in the system’s thermal mass.
- TU Wien (Vienna, Austria) — 4 months from around January 2029 (academic), with Ivona Brandić: combine the thermal-aware optimization models with cloud resource-management systems.
The host
POWERlab at EPFL develops wide-band-gap power devices and chip-integrated microfluidic cooling for ultra-efficient, high-power-density systems.
Supervision
Main supervisor: Elison Matioli (ORCID) — Professor and Director of POWERlab, EPFL. He works on wide-band-gap power electronics and chip-integrated microfluidic cooling.
Co-supervisors:
Profile we are looking for
- Heat transfer, fluid dynamics, or thermal modeling
- Optimization methods
- Experience with microfabrication or MEMS is a plus
- MSc (completed or near completion) in mechanical, electrical, or microengineering, or a related field
- Curiosity, initiative, and good spoken and written English
You must also meet the MSCA eligibility rules — no PhD yet, the mobility rule, and open to all nationalities.
How to apply
Official vacancy at the host institution: link coming soon.
Until then, apply through the central AEGIS application portal: AEGIS application portal (reference position DC2), and read what to include in your application.
Questions about this position? Contact the coordinator, Prof. Paul Pop, aegis@compute.dtu.dk.