generated by hot-running chips. New AI-focused processors pack ever more CPU, GPU, and NPU horsepower into increasingly thin machines. But the basic approach to cooling them hasn’t changed much in decades: The humble spinning fan remains one of the biggest constraints on laptop design.
Ventiva says it’s time to rethink how we do things.
At Computex 2026, I met with Carl Schlachte, the chairman, president, and CEO of Ventiva, a 62-person company based in Fremont, Calif., that has designed solid-state “ionic cooling” modules with no moving parts. The pitch isn’t merely quieter laptops. By eliminating fans, Ventiva says it can free motherboard space, give designers more flexibility, and help solve one of AI computing’s biggest emerging challenges: cramming massive gobs of memory close to increasingly powerful processors. And Ventiva has an automated factory in Malaysia that, Schlachte says, is ready to move millions of these modules.