{"title":"Corintis vs Johnson Controls: Cooling & thermal compared","url":"https://www.frontiertechintelligence.com/compare/corintis-vs-johnson-controls","comparison":"Johnson Controls ranks 66 on the AI Infra 100 with a score of 88; Corintis ranks 76 with 87. Corintis is ahead on deployment, technology and positioning. Johnson Controls is ahead on production, commercials and firepower. Level on progress and leverage. Corintis is based in Lausanne, Switzerland, Johnson Controls in Cork, Ireland. Corintis is named in 16 signals and Johnson Controls in 5.","companies":[{"name":"Corintis","url":"https://www.frontiertechintelligence.com/companies/corintis","city":"Lausanne","country":"Switzerland","stage":null,"founded":null,"last_round":null,"positioning":"Corintis is the strongest new name in this batch and the one whose validation is least company-sourced. Working with Microsoft, it etched branching coolant channels into the silicon's backside so liquid flows microns from each hotspot, using AI-generated leaf-vein geometries optimised for minimal pressure drop, and Microsoft reported the in-chip microfluidic system removed heat three times better than the most advanced cold plates in common use while cooling a server running core services on standard datacenter coolant chemistry. Satya Nadella shared the result publicly. The design is fabrication-agnostic by intent, and Corintis is negotiating with multiple fabs to co-develop etch recipes. Commercially it is further along than most deeptech at this stage: over ten thousand cooling systems manufactured, deployments on leading-edge AI chips, several major American tech giants as customers, and 8-digit cumulative revenue since incorporation which it expects to more than 10x. Manufacturing capacity supports 100,000 units annually with plans to reach 1 million during 2026. Funding came fast: a USD 24 million Series A in September 2025 led by BlueYard at roughly USD 400 million post-money, then a USD 25 million Series A1 in December 2025 led by Applied Digital, for USD 58 million total. Commercial scores 2 because the 8-digit figure is cumulative, not annual. Taxonomy note: this is chip-level microfluidic cooling etched into the silicon, closer to advanced packaging than to facilit","assessed_in":{"domain":"AI Core","list":"AI Infra 100","rank":76,"score":87,"tier":"member","scores":{"leverage":10,"position":10,"progress":10,"firepower":6,"commercial":4,"deployment":10,"production":6,"technology":10},"why":"Corintis makes microfluidic cold plates and chip-specific cooling systems for AI data-center chips, plus custom cooling design services.","segment":"Cooling & thermal","layer":"Power, cooling & thermal"},"signals_total":16,"facts_total":42},{"name":"Johnson Controls","url":"https://www.frontiertechintelligence.com/companies/johnson-controls","city":"Cork","country":"Ireland","stage":null,"founded":null,"last_round":null,"positioning":"Johnson Controls is no longer a building-automation company with a data center side business. Data center revenue is a high-teens percentage of fiscal 2026 sales and the CFO has said it could reach roughly one-third of total company revenue within three to five years. Fiscal Q3 2026 organic sales rose 10 percent to USD 6.6 billion with Applied HVAC posting high-teens growth driven by data center cooling; adjusted segment EBITA margin widened 220 basis points to 19.8 percent; backlog reached a record USD 21 billion, up more than 30 percent, with Americas orders up 37 percent. The technical position rests on two things: NVIDIA certification for its cooling distribution units, with a pipeline above USD 1 billion and shipments beginning, plus a jointly developed AI-factory thermal reference guide; and an absorption chiller reference design the company says cuts cooling electrical demand by approximately 44 percent at a 1 gigawatt AI factory by converting waste heat into cooling, unlocking 97 megawatts of additional compute capacity, which changes site selection economics for hyperscalers. It released the YORK YK-HT two-stage economized centrifugal chiller and exited residential HVAC to focus the portfolio. Its relevance doubles because it led the Accelsius USD 65 million Series B on 2026-01-12, putting it on both sides of the two-phase versus single-phase question.","assessed_in":{"domain":"AI Core","list":"AI Infra 100","rank":66,"score":88,"tier":"member","scores":{"gate_ne":["firepower"],"leverage":10,"position":8,"progress":10,"firepower":10,"commercial":10,"deployment":8,"production":8,"technology":8},"why":"Johnson Controls supplies YORK chillers, absorption chillers, cooling distribution units and high-temperature heat pumps, including products designed for high-density AI data centers and industrial electrification.","segment":"Cooling & thermal","layer":"Power, cooling & thermal"},"signals_total":5,"facts_total":24}],"note":"Assessment by Frontier Tech Intelligence; facts and signals carry their sources."}