As his term limit comes to an end
The head of the Department of Energy's data center cooling research effort has left for equipment supplier Eaton.
The Coolerchips program is run through ARPA-E, which limits the terms of program directors, necessitating Dr. Peter De Bock's departure.
ARPA-E also faces budget cuts of as much as 57 percent in President Trump’s budget request for fiscal year 2026.
"Excited to start my new role at Eaton as vice president data center energy & cooling, where I’ll be working on cutting-edge energy and cooling solutions for data centers," De Bock said on LinkedIn. "Looking forward to collaborating with this incredible team!"
We profiled De Bock's work on Coolerchips in an outgoing interview, published this week in our latest AI Hardware Supplement.
Launched in September 2022, Coolerchips aimed to dramatically improve data center cooling - from chip to facility level - in partnership with industry suppliers.
Ultimately, 15 distinct projects were funded through the $40 million program, including concepts from Nvidia, Flexnode, HP, and Raytheon.
This summer, those projects have to demonstrate a working server featuring their cooling solution.
“I have a lot of people ask me, ‘Is immersion the future? Is two-phase the future? Is it direct to chip?’ And I'm telling them, all of these projects have the potential to meet it, but the actual winner will be the one that makes the most economical, most maintainable, most reliable box," he told DCD.
"It's not the technology under the hood. It's the box. It's like VHS and BetaMax, right? It doesn't have to be the best technology. It has to be the best product. That's what we're looking at.”
At ARPA-E, De Bock also worked on the OPEN21 energy technology research program, as well as sustainable aviation projects Ascent and Pre-Trails.
Prior to his time in government, De Bock spent more than 17 years at GE Research working on advanced cooling solutions.
