KIT and Tsukuba researchers build electricity-free cooling chip
A team from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and the University of Tsukuba in Japan has built a cooling system that runs entirely without electricity, according to a paper published in Nature Energy on Friday, August 28, 2026. The device relies on elastocaloric cooling, a process in which shape-memory alloys change temperature as they are mechanically loaded and unloaded through phase transitions. The team's miniaturized system uses two super-thin nickel-titanium foils that play opposite roles: one foil shrinks when heated, generating mechanical energy, while the second foil is loaded and unloaded using that energy to trigger cooling. In laboratory testing, the prototype reached a temperature span of 12.9 K at the refrigerant film level and 4.0 K at the device level. In a separate test condition, when the system was driven by an external heat source of 130°C (266°F), it maintained a device-level temperature span of 2.2 K. Lead researcher Yi-Ting Hsiau said: "The decisive moment was seeing measurable cooling for the first time, generated by a heat-driven system." The researchers frame the work against the fact that cooling and heating together account for more than 40 percent of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. The team plans to build larger experimental units to optimize performance, and eventually to develop compact systems that use waste heat for sustainable cooling applications. The source does not give a timeline for either step, nor does it state that the technology has been tested or deployed in an actual datacenter; the datacenter angle comes from the general cooling-and-heating emissions statistic rather than a stated application.
Key facts
- KIT (Germany) and the University of Tsukuba (Japan) built a solid-state, electricity-free cooling device, described in a Nature Energy paper published Friday, August 28, 2026
- The device uses elastocaloric cooling: two nickel-titanium shape-memory alloy foils, one generating mechanical energy when heated, the other loaded and unloaded to produce cooling
- Lab prototype reached a 12.9 K temperature span at the refrigerant film level and 4.0 K at the device level
- Under a separate test with a 130°C (266°F) external heat source, the device sustained a 2.2 K temperature span
- Cooling and heating combined account for more than 40 percent of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, the researchers note as motivation; no datacenter test or deployment is claimed
Why it matters
Datacenter cooling is a major and growing energy cost, and this result shows a working, electricity-free path to generating a measurable cooling effect from waste heat rather than from a compressor drawing power. The researchers frame the motivation in terms of the more than 40 percent of global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions that cooling and heating together produce, making any electricity-free alternative worth watching even at prototype scale.
Who it affects
The immediate audience is researchers and engineers working on thermal management and materials science, plus anyone tracking ways to cut the energy overhead of computing infrastructure. No hardware maker, cloud provider or datacenter operator is named as a partner, tester or adopter; the connection to datacenters in the coverage is inferred from the general emissions statistic, not from a stated application by the source.
How to use it
There is nothing to use yet. The work exists as a laboratory prototype and a Nature Energy paper; no product, kit or licensing terms exist, and the source gives no cost, size or manufacturing-scale figures. The team's stated next steps are to build larger experimental units to optimize performance and, eventually, compact systems that use waste heat for cooling.
How solid is it
The findings are peer-reviewed, published in Nature Energy, and backed by two specific, named measurements from laboratory testing: a 12.9 K/4.0 K temperature span in one test condition and a 2.2 K span under a 130°C external heat source in another. The source treats these as two separate reported results rather than a before-and-after pair, so they should not be read as one superseding the other.
Risks and caveats
This is an early-stage laboratory demonstration, not a deployable cooling system. The source gives no timeline for when larger units or compact systems might be ready, no cost or manufacturing-scale figures, and no claim that the technology has been tested for or applied to an actual datacenter. The journal issue, volume or DOI is also not specified in the coverage.
“The decisive moment was seeing measurable cooling for the first time, generated by a heat-driven system.”
— Yi-Ting Hsiau, lead researcher