Castrol purchases Electronic Cooling Solutions to cool data centers.

Castrol, a leading global brand of industrial and automotive lubricants owned by UK-based energy major bp, has announced a strategic investment in Electronic Cooling Solutions (ECS) — a U.S.-based thermal management design and engineering company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The partnership marks a major step in Castrol’s expansion beyond liquid cooling fluids into end-to-end thermal management solutions for data centres and electronics.

Through this collaboration, Castrol and ECS will deliver comprehensive thermal solutions — spanning system design, feasibility analysis, deployment, and ongoing operational support. The partnership aims to help hyperscalers, equipment manufacturers, and AI operators tackle escalating heat management challenges in high-performance computing (HPC) environments.

The investment comes at a critical time as data centres face rising power densities and greater energy efficiency demands driven by AI workloads. According to Castrol’s 2025 “Dipping Point” survey, 74% of data centre experts now consider liquid cooling essential for meeting compute performance goals, though many still encounter barriers to implementation.

ECS brings strong capabilities in advanced thermal design, simulation, and testing, leveraging computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and finite element analysis (FEA) to optimize cooling system performance. Its client portfolio spans computing, networking, telecommunications, and OEM sectors.

As part of the agreement, Bharat Vats has been appointed President and CEO of ECS. A seasoned leader with experience at IBM, GE, Danaher, and PARC, Vats will spearhead ECS’s growth strategy and integration with Castrol’s global operations.

“The data centre industry is entering an AI-driven era that demands higher levels of efficiency and innovation,” said Peter Huang, Global Vice President of Data Centre Thermal Management at Castrol. “Our goal is not only to deliver high-performance cooling fluids but also to offer holistic, full-system solutions in collaboration with ECS.”

Vats added that partnering with Castrol will enable ECS to scale its expertise and accelerate the adoption of advanced cooling technologies across the global data centre ecosystem.

The detailed article is published by https://www.castrol.com/ can be accessed from https://www.castrol.com/en/global/corporate/about-castrol/newsroom/electronic-cooling-solutions-investment.html