Pangyo Startup Zone is the nation’s largest start-up support cluster established in 2017 by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups to foster promising startups in new industries, and is currently jointly operated by the Korea Startup Promotion Agency and the Gyeonggi Creative Economy Innovation Center. It has established itself as a center of the start-up ecosystem as it can enjoy high-quality acceleration and investment attraction opportunities at the Gyeonggi Innovation Center. Meet the CEO of a tenant company who dreams of becoming a unicorn in the future.
[2026 Pangyo Start-up Zone Interview 2] Lee Ju-ye, CEO of CENS
Fusion Technology feat between a veterinary medicine researcher and a cooling expert
Overcoming the limitations of the existing complete immersion method… Reduce coolant by 95% and structural load by 70%
As the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution accelerates, the thermal management of the AI data center of Hyperscaler (a company that operates large-scale cloud infrastructure) has emerged as a key task in the global tech industry. As the power density per rack of next-generation GPUs such as Nvidia exploded, existing air-cooled systems faced physical cooling limitations. Global air conditioning and cooling companies, including Vertiv Holdings, are quickly switching to liquid cooling as the heating density of GPUs becomes severe enough to be compared to the surface of the reactor core. However, the existing complete immersion method of immersing the entire server in insulating oil in large tanks has revealed major limitations in introducing existing data center buildings due to regulatory barriers such as enormous load increases in tons, high cooling oil costs of tens of millions of won, and restrictions under domestic fire laws.
Climate tech start-up CENS is the main character who broke through the fatal Pain Point of global cooling infrastructure with the reverse idea of precision injection technology. The company has developed a technology to precisely spray non-conductive insulating fluids in the form of mist (fog) in key areas where heat is concentrated, reducing the amount of cooling liquid used by 95% and reducing the structural load by 70% compared to the existing liquid immersion method. I met this company, which is making a leap into a global thermal management platform company by expanding its business into the AI data center market based on its proven technology in eco-friendly ship water cooling systems.
Q. Please tell me what kind of company it is and what business area it operates in.
CENS stands for “Cooling Engineering & New Solutions,” which contains a vision to solve energy problems in the AI and power industries and create new industrial value based on unique cooling technology. CNS is a climate tech startup that precisely controls heat from high-heat AI data centers and eco-friendly ship power facilities with liquid.
As the power density of GPU-centered servers has increased rapidly due to the recent spread of Generative AI, the air-cooled method of cooling down with conventional wind has reached its limit. The enormous power and water resource problems consumed by cooling have become the biggest obstacles to data center operation. CNS is solving these challenges with its own liquid cooling solution. Based on the high-reliability fluid control technology accumulated by commercializing the power conversion system (VFD) water cooling system (CENS-P) of eco-friendly ships, the company developed “CENS-D”, a precision liquid cooling system for AI data centers. Beyond simple cooling equipment manufacturing, it aims to become a sustainable thermal management platform company that simultaneously solves power, heat, and water problems in the AI era and recycles industrial waste heat into energy in the future.
Q2. I’m curious about the history of start-ups and how they work.
The idea of starting a business started from the field experience of ‘the key to the success or failure of high-performance precision equipment is ultimately heat management’. I was a veterinarian majoring in veterinary medicine and a researcher who worked at a research institute (animal hygiene test center, etc.) under the Gyeonggi Provincial Government for more than 10 years and directly operated precision chemical analysis equipment. High-performance equipment that precisely analyzes trace chemicals is very vulnerable to heat, so if constant temperature maintenance fails, expensive equipment has to stop and all experiments have to be done all over again.
Based on this awareness of the problem, we have joined hands with experts in the field of precision fluid control and power cooling. The founding team members are veteran engineers who have developed precision fluid control technology and power cooling systems in other companies. After participating in CIGRE, an international electricity grid conference in France in 2022, and confirming the rapid carbon regulatory transition in Europe and the explosive growth of the liquid cooling market, CINS was founded in April 2024.
The core principle of the main product “CENS-D” is not to “dip the entire server in oil,” but to “precisely spray the coolant to the core area where heat is generated and only as necessary.” After spraying a non-conductive insulating coolant in the form of a mist to high-heating areas such as GPUs and CPUs, fluid and heat are immediately recovered through a closed circulation structure. There is no unnecessary power consumption because the cooling flow rate is actively adjusted according to the computational load of the server through thermal design power (TDP) tracking control.
Q. It expanded its business from eco-friendly ship cooling to AI data center cooling. I wonder why.
The biggest moat (entry barrier) of CNS is in the formation of a unique start-up team that combines chemical analysis, authorized testing, and administrative regulation capabilities with precision fluid control high voltage power cooling technology.
Starting with the selection of a preliminary start-up package in April 2024, it launched CENS-P, an eco-friendly water-cooled cooling system for ships, and signed contracts with two mid-sized companies for industrial facility cooling design services. In 2025, it started to deliver CENS-P with the registration of large corporate partners, and at the same time, it entered the AI data center market in earnest and put CENS-D on the market.
The global power equipment market has been dominated by three global companies, General Electric (GE), ABB (ABB), and Siemens, and has been operating technology in a closed manner. In the past, when cooling parts of overseas power conversion devices mounted on domestic ships or warships failed, foreign manufacturers had to wait for years to repair parts due to delays in response, and last year, when the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) stopped due to thermal throttling due to server heat generation, the loss of opportunities worth KRW 1,000 trillion proves how important localization and stable maintenance of cooling solutions are. We have verified our design capabilities to enable uninterrupted operation even in harsh marine environments through ship products and have successfully transplanted them into data centers.
Q. What is the differential competitiveness over conventional cooling methods.
![CENS-D adopts a targeted precision spray method, drastically reducing cooling oil usage by up to 95% and structural load by up to 70% compared to conventional immersion methods. [CENTION = CENS]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==)
The existing complete immersion cooling method is a structure that sinks the server directly into a large water tank rack of 3,000L. A large amount of oil is added to the weight of the server, which increases the load by more than four times compared to the air-cooled type. Due to this, it is impossible to install without reinforcing the existing structure of the building. In addition, under the domestic Dangerous Goods Safety Management Act and the Fire Protection Act, insulating oil is classified as a fourth-class petroleum and cannot be stored more than 6,000 liters in one space. Liquid prices are also very expensive, and the process of drying and withdrawing oil during maintenance is very difficult. Direct-to-chip cooling, led by VRT and others, is a method of placing a cold plate with cold water on the chip, and as the fluid path structure becomes more complex, the pump load increases and there is a risk of a short circuit in case of fluid leakage.
On the other hand, CENS-D adopted a targeted precision spray method, drastically reducing the amount of cooling oil used and structural load by up to 95% compared to the conventional immersion method. The use of cooling oil is extremely small, so it does not violate fire law regulations, and its light weight allows it to be applied immediately when converting to an AI center by renovating the building of an existing urban data center. In addition, it is environmentally friendly by achieving zero water use efficiency (WUE) with a fully closed circulation structure that does not consume process water. In addition, a 1+1 dual pump system is applied to ensure 24 hours of uninterrupted operation by automatic failover to the auxiliary pump within 10 seconds in the event of a main pump failure. Finally, since the fluid is immediately recovered after mist spraying, the hot-swappable server withdrawal and parts replacement are possible.
Q. What is the current status of investment attraction and plans for mid- to long-term business expansion and global expansion.
CNS is growing rapidly by commercializing technology and securing business performance. In June this year, it attracted seed investment from the Korea Investment Accelerator and was selected for a number of government R&D and start-up support projects such as eco-startup, blue start-up, and initial start-up package to secure funds for technology advancement.
The expansion of the business will be carried out with a three-stage roadmap. In the first stage, CENS-D’s commercialization reference is firmly established in the AI data center liquid cooling market, and in the second stage, the AI conversion market of the existing data center is actively targeted. In the third stage, the technology will be expanded to the entire high-heating industry, including energy storage systems (ESSs), eco-friendly ships, and fast charging infrastructure for large-capacity electric vehicles.
In line with the trend of global big tech companies excluding parts that do not meet carbon emission regulations and RE100 standards, the company wants to be reborn as a circular thermal energy platform that recovers high-temperature waste heat and recycles it as hot water or heating energy. In the future, OEM cooperation with domestic and foreign data center implementers and global server manufacturers will accelerate entry into the global market.
Q. What is the practical help you have received as a tenant of the Gyeonggi Creative Economy Innovation Center.
The Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy Innovation (hereinafter referred to as the Gyeonggi Center) and the Pangyo Startup Zone are outposts and the most reliable helpers that have enabled C&S to grow rapidly into a technology company.
The overall risks of management, such as legal, tax, and labor, which are difficult for early startups to solve on their own, could be checked in advance with 1:1 in-depth consulting through the Gyeonggi Center’s “One-Stop Support Program.” In addition, Pangyo was able to actively network with large companies and investment companies based on its excellent geographical and technical infrastructure, which led to actual seed investment and business collaboration.
In particular, thanks to the close support of the Gyeonggi Center, it was able to be selected one after another for the government and public institutions to foster climate tech startups. It was a great fortune for the business to be provided with credible certification and network in B2B and public markets where technology reliability is paramount. Based on the proven technology built by the Gyeonggi Center, we want to grow into a global climate tech company that goes beyond the domestic market and travels the world stage.
This article has been translated by GripLabs Mingo AI.
