Industry Liaison Update on Progress to Accelerate Immersion Cooling

Author: Kelley Mullick, Avayla; Maryam Mohagheghi, HF Sinclair Collection: 2025-OCP-EMEA-Summit-Immersion-Cooling

Summary

Presented at the 2025 OCP EMEA Summit in Dublin (29–30 April), this session provides the first six-month progress report of the OCP Immersion Industry Liaison Team (ILT), a group formed to bridge the gap between the OCP immersion community's technical expertise and the formal standards bodies that govern data center safety, electrical, and fire protection requirements. The team was initiated by Ralph (OCP Immersion project lead) at the prior AMIA summit, with Kelley Mullick (Avayla) as chair and Maryam Mohagheghi (HF Sinclair) as co-chair.

The core problem the team addresses is structural: immersion cooling as a technology is advancing faster than the standards that govern it. Current standards being applied to immersion cooling were not designed for it — they originate from other industry specifications. The ILT's mandate is two-way communication and harmonization between OCP and external standards bodies, covering geographies from the US and Europe to emerging Asia-Pacific engagement.

The team has active engagements with six standards organizations: UL (Mark Sakamoto, Elizabeth Fernando), ASTM International (Griffin Burke), LCC/Liquid Cooling Coalition (Erica Thomas), IEEE (Terry Little), IEC (Rolf Brink), ASHRAE (John Bean), plus EU representation (Maarten Trautmann, European Commission). Near-term activities include sharing an OCP letter of engagement with ASTM D27, preparing a proposal for IEC Technical Committee TC 108, participating in the US Technical Advisory Committee meeting for IEC 62368-1 in August 2025 in Raleigh, NC, and submitting NFPA 75 input by January 2026. The team has assembled a priorities board covering topics such as testing method limitations, warranty adoption, fluid standards, energy efficiency/EU focus, and cross-OCP TC collaboration, mapped against standards bodies including ASHRAE, ASTM, BICSI, CALIF, CEN, IBC, IEC, UL, NFPA, ISO, and TIA.