Cooling next-generation electronics: From emerging semiconductors to data centers

With the significant progresses in lithography, advanced packaging technologies, and the integration of emerging semiconductor materials, modern electronics have revolutionized numerous fields, including data center, electric vehicles, and wireless communication.However, the accompanying rise in thermal design power and heat flux, which are over kilowatts and kilowatts per square centimeter respectively, poses a significant challenge for thermal management.This cooling crisis is further exacerbated by the exponential growth of data centers driven by artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, which now consume over 2% of global electricity, with cooling alone accounting for nearly 40% of this energy.Without transformative thermal management strategies, the next generation of electronics risks being limited by its own heat.This editorial traces the thermal challenge across scales-from chiplevel, enabled by emerging semiconductor materials, to rack-level infrastructure.We begin by dissecting the thermal bottlenecks of wide-bandgap and ultra-wide-bandgap semiconductors, where soaring heat fluxes clash with poor thermal conduction.Next, we explore the heat transfer complexities of advanced packaging technology, where heterogeneous integration amplifies thermal crosstalk.Finally, we scale up to data centers, where liquid cooling and waste heat recovery must improve to support the global decarbonization efforts.Through this lens, we emphasize for a thermal-centric redesign of electronics, making cooling innovation a driver of sustainable progress.