Building solutions company Johnson Controls International said on Tuesday it has launched a Reference Design Guide Series for 1 gigawatt AI data centres.

The company said the guides systematically cover the entire data centre thermal management process. It provides cooling architectures tailored to different computing densities, local environments and altitude conditions. It starts with detailed design blueprints for water-cooled chiller plants and plans to expand to air-cooled and absorption chillers.

The newly released guide presents a complete thermal management architecture that supports both water-cooled and air-cooled IT loads. It includes computer room air handlers (CRAH), fan coil walls, coolant distribution units (CDU) and high-efficiency YORK centrifugal chillers.

It provides detailed criteria for calculating cooling capacity for a 220 megawatt compute quadrant. It defines temperatures and operating conditions across major facility loops, including a Technology Cooling System (TCS) loop that supports next-generation GPUs.

Austin Domenici (오스틴 도메니치), vice president and general manager of Johnson Controls' global data centre solutions business, said, "AI factories are facilities that produce intelligence at industrial scale." He said, "The Johnson Controls reference design guide supports Nvidia DSX reference architecture and secures power and water use efficiency and high-temperature loop compatibility at the same time. This supports customers in building gigawatt-scale AI infrastructure in a scalable, repeatable, resilient and sustainable form."