Chinese researchers have developed a new diamond-copper material that they say can improve the cooling efficiency of artificial intelligence (AI) data centres by up to 80 per cent.

The functional carbon materials team – from the Ningbo Institute of Industrial Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) – said the composite material had already been deployed in an AI computing node in Zhengzhou in Henan province, China Science Daily reported.

The global computing industry’s pursuit of AI breakthroughs is hitting a “thermal wall” – overheating caused by the higher heat output of new-generation chips due to their increased power density.

China relies on imported high-end heat dissipation materials, but the cost and their ability to conduct heat are having a direct impact on the country’s ability to build a self-sufficient computing infrastructure, according to the official newspaper Science and Technology Daily.

As a result, securing an independent and controllable thermal management materials industry is vital for China’s computing power sector and core competitiveness.

The team said the diamond-copper composite material had a thermal conductivity exceeding 1,000 watts per metre-kelvin (W/mK).