As Austrias largest research and technology organisation for applied research we are dedicated to make substantial contribution to solving the major challenges of our time climate change and digitisation. To achieve our goals we rely on our specific research development and technology competencies which are the basis of our commitment to excellence in all areas. With our open culture of innovation and our motivated international teams we are working to position AIT as Austrias leading research institution at the highest international level and to make a positive contribution to the economy and society.

Our Center for Energylocated in Vienna invites applications for a PhD Thesis position. At the Center for Energy we develop sustainable solutions for the energy system of the future taking into account technological regulatory and economic requirements. Our portfolio of topics focuses on three key systems: cities and the built environment public energy supply systems and industrial energy systems.

The PhD project focuses on innovative cooling solutions for high-power data centers and high-performance electronic systems. As current server and data center infrastructures primarily rely on air-based cooling systems they increasingly reach their thermal limits due to rapidly rising power densities in modern CPUs and GPUs. Liquid cooling technologies such as Direct-to-Chip (D2C) can dissipate higher heat loads from HPC and AI data centers but still require additional air-cooling support for other components to ensure the efficiency of these systems.

To overcome these limitations the PhD project willinvestigate immersion cooling in general with the main focus on waste-heat upgrade via two-phase immersion cooling (2PIC) where the fluid boils directly on the chip surface and enables highly efficient heat removal. By combining 2PIC with an integrated heat pump the project will explore how the resulting waste heat can be upgraded and reused as a valuable energy resource and important contribution to enable sustainable data centers and highly efficient electronic systems.

• You will perform a thorough literature review on immersion cooling technologies and waste-heat utilization by heat integration within thermal networks to establish the state of the art and identify technological and operational challenges.
• You will model and conduct dynamic system simulations of full cooling systems (e.g. in Dymola)
• You will conduct experimental investigations focusing on the integration of active cooling cooling aggregates and heat pumps systems to develop control strategies and test operation windows under different load conditions.
• You will perform techno-economic and feasibility analyses.

• You will contribute to the development of standards and interfaces for integrating immersion cooling into data centers and energy system infrastructures.
• By working closely with industrial and scientific partners you will gain valuable experience and develop expertise in energy-efficient cooling and waste-heat utilisation for high-performance electronics.
• Your research will also strengthen AITs technological expertise innovation and industry impact in this field.
• You will engage in scientific planning and you will publish your findings in international journals and present them at conferences.