As lead investor and technical partner, Airsys supplies the LiquidPack spray cooling inside ThermAI's HeatBridge prototype, debuting at SC26
LONDON and WOODRUFF, S.C., Nov. 12, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Airsys, a global thermal management company for mission-critical environments, is making its first move into circular heat reuse as the lead investor and technical partner supporting UK GPU compute company ThermAI and its development of a distributed, heat-reusing computing infrastructure.
UK company ThermAI's HeatBridge system is built around its LiquidDock server cassette, which uses Airsys' LiquidPack spray-cooling technology to capture heat from AI and research computing. ThermAI turns that heat into heating and hot water at no cost to participating households, and will unveil HeatBridge at SC26 in Chicago, November 17-19.
ThermAI has developed FlightDeck, a GPU compute platform providing worldwide access to UK-hosted GPU resources for AI, research and engineering workloads. The platform is designed to combine repeatable jobs, reusable datasets and clear visibility of costs in one workflow, with plans to support a distributed network of heat-reusing ThermAI Nodes.
Most server heat today is simply vented away. ThermAI and Airsys are putting it to work where people live.
"We're designing the computing platform and the heating system together, so heat reuse is part of the infrastructure from the start," said Christopher Smart, founder and CEO of ThermAI. "Our aim is to make that work as a commercially viable model that can scale."
ThermAI has closed a pre-seed funding round led by Airsys, with participation from venture capital firm Augur VC and angel investors.
"ThermAI brings together a commercial opportunity in GPU computing and a practical way to make homes more affordable to heat," said Dan Chapman, President of Augur VC. "We see strong potential in the model and are pleased to support Chris and the team."
Heating and hot water at no cost to participating households
Participating households receive heating and hot water at no cost, and if a home needs backup heating, ThermAI covers that cost too. With a typical UK household paying around £144 a month for gas and electricity at current price-cap rates, free heating and hot water could deliver substantial savings for ThermAI host households. The initial rollout will focus on social housing, making a real difference to residents experiencing fuel poverty.
Following initial pilots, ThermAI is targeting deployment in 100 homes with UK social housing providers in 2027, as landlords work to bring every social rented home in England to EPC band C by 2030 with support from the government's £15 billion Warm Homes Plan.
"Decarbonizing homes should also make them more affordable to heat, not just improve EPC ratings," said Smart.
Nottingham researchers line up for a pilot
Professor Jonathan Hirst of the University of Nottingham's School of Chemistry has signed a letter of intent to take part in a ThermAI compute pilot, supporting GPU-intensive research such as drug discovery and molecular dynamics.
"ThermAI's approach is a highly sustainable one that would benefit local communities," said Professor Hirst. "Initiatives like this could play an important role in maintaining and improving the sustainability of organizations such as ours."
Why Airsys: from one home to the district
For Airsys, a single home is the proving ground for a model built to scale. The same spray-cooling technology Airsys is bringing to data centers could one day recover heat from full deployments and feed it into district heat networks.
"Heat reuse is the next frontier for thermal infrastructure, and ThermAI shows what it looks like when you design for circularity from the server up," said Yunshui Chen, founder and CEO of Airsys. "For the first time, our spray-cooling technology is not only keeping servers cool, but turning their heat into a vital utility for the home. If we can prove this circular model in a single household, the same approach can scale to data centers feeding district heating. That is what 'Balance the Environment' demands of us: treating every watt of energy as a resource that does double duty."
Spray cooling is what first drew ThermAI to Airsys. Rather than submerging servers in fluid, LiquidPack sprays an electrically non-conductive fluid directly onto the hardware inside a sealed cassette, recovering heat as outlet water of up to 60°C - well suited to domestic heating and hot water. "When we saw spray cooling and higher coolant temperatures, it instantly clicked," said Smart. "For something that has to live inside a home, it suits what we're building."
How it works
Each installation pairs a custom six-GPU ThermAI Node with HeatBridge. The HeatBridge system is UK patent pending. Universities, research centers, AI startups and engineering firms access the computing remotely through ThermAI's FlightDeck platform, on UK-hosted hardware. An Airsys heat exchanger moves the recovered heat into a water circuit, with outlet water temperatures of up to 60°C, where Sunamp heat batteries store it until the home needs it.
2CRSi builds the servers through its Manchester-based subsidiary, using NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs, each with 96 GB of memory. ThermAI is a member of the NVIDIA Inception program, and its wider partner network includes Sunamp, Oleon, ESBE, Roedan, OCF, Inta, InstaGen, Savar Brass and the University of Nottingham.
See it at SC26
The HeatBridge prototype will be on display on the 2CRSi's booth #1211, November 17-19, alongside a demonstration of ThermAI's FlightDeck platform. To arrange a meeting at SC26, contact chris@thermai.uk.
Qualifying businesses and research organizations can also apply for a no-cost GPU trial at thermai.uk/trial
ABOUT AIRSYS
Airsys is a global leader in mission-critical thermal management for high-performance digital infrastructure including data centers, AI, edge computing, telecom, medical imaging, and advanced manufacturing environments. Airsys combines more than 30 years of technical excellence designing and delivering thermal management solutions across all major architectures - air, liquid and hybrid - with a purpose-driven focus on energy efficiency and sustainability.
With its unique focus on higher Power Compute Effectiveness (PCE), Airsys helps customers allocate more of their provisioned power to compute. The company is headquartered in South Carolina, USA, and supports its global mission with 1,000+ employees across 16 global locations. For more information, visit airsyscooling.com.
About ThermAI
ThermAI Group Ltd is a UK company building a distributed GPU cloud hosted in homes. Its FlightDeck platform gives universities, researchers, AI startups and engineering firms remote access to GPU computing, while its HeatBridge system recovers the servers' heat to provide heating and hot water at no cost to participating households, starting with UK social housing. ThermAI is a member of NVIDIA Inception. Learn more at thermai.uk.
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3ee6e035-3894-423f-a507-c00a6eb2c994
Media contacts: Airsys Media Relations | Marketbridge (North America) airsys@marketbridge.com Omarketing (Europe) rose@omarketing.com ThermAI Christopher Smart, chris@thermai.uk