The studio will aim to build ventures tackling system-level bottlenecks in data centre performance, resilience, efficiency, and sustainability. Focus areas will include cooling, energy, density, and circularity, key challenges delaying or derailing the expansion of this critical infrastructure.

New data centres encounter planning roadblocks, water consumption concerns, grid capacity shortfalls, and rising pressure to cut energy and material waste. Meanwhile, existing sites are straining under surging demand and impeded by outdated cooling, tight power budgets, and rigid infrastructure.

The studio is targeting commencement in 2026 and is inviting additional strategic partners to join the collaboration, providing early access to the technologies shaping the next generation of compute.

“Without breakthroughs in infrastructure, the expansion of rack-scale compute will hit real-world limits across power, heat, and space,” said Steve Raffe, Commercial Director at Cambridge Future Tech.

CFT and Arup bring complementary capabilities to the venture studio model. CFT identifies breakthrough academic research and builds companies around it using a structured process developed across its portfolio of spinouts. Arup brings decades of global experience designing and delivering high-performance data centres for global cloud and colocation providers – expertise that ensures new technologies are resilient, scalable, and sustainable in practice.

“Much of the science we need to solve these problems already exists, but rarely escapes the lab without intervention,” said Raffe. “By combining CFT’s model for uncovering and commercialising radical science with Arup’s ability to shape real-world systems, we can create ventures that are ambitious, practical, and designed to scale globally.”

 “Meeting the soaring demand for digital infrastructure requires tackling power, cooling and carbon challenges head-on. Through the Deep Rack Venture Studio, Arup will help bring breakthrough science into real-world data centres – solutions that are scalable, sustainable, and engineered for deployment from day one,” said Gareth Williams, Arup UKIMEA Technology Leader.

The Deep Rack Venture Studio will apply CFT’s Scientific Venture Creation process, which has produced startups such as Literal Labs (developing logic-based AI models 54× faster and 52× more energy efficient than neural networks) and Dew Point Systems (an evaporative cooling technology that achieved 3× higher efficiency than advanced hybrids during data centre pilot testing). Arup’s expertise will ensure technologies are selected and developed for more than disruption – focusing on resilience, scalability and sustainability in operational data centres.

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