Taiwanese chip materials supplier Topco (崇越) is pushing into AI chip cooling and optical packaging, a good sign for a company riding the AI server boom.

• AI chips now burn through a kilowatt of power each, and old cooling methods can no longer keep up.
• Topco is showing off heat-transfer materials and tiny copper-pillar water channels that pull heat straight off the chip.
• It is also offering sapphire wafer carriers that resist warping, a problem with the glass carriers used in advanced packaging.
• With Japanese partners SCIVAX and Shin-Etsu, it is building micro-lens arrays for co-packaged optics, where light replaces copper wiring inside chips.
• The company is expanding local service in the US, Japan, and Southeast Asia, and selling energy-saving gear to chip plants.

Outlook: As chipmakers move to 2-nanometer and A16 production, demand for better cooling and optical packaging materials should keep growing.