Advanced Cooling Technologies

Everyone understands the concept of keeping our technology cool. We know our phones stop charging when they get too hot and our cars break down when the engine overheats. But for advanced industries like defense, aerospace, and data processing, more sophisticated heat management solutions are essential.

“No matter the industry, there is a consistent drive to make products faster, smaller and higher performing,”  says Adam Say, International Business Development Manager of Advanced Cooling Technologies (ACT). “As technology continues to advance, that demand creates increasingly complex thermal challenges. The less space available to integrate a cooling solution, and the more heat that advanced technologies generate, the more difficult it becomes to effectively manage and control that heat.”

Creating and manufacturing solutions that effectively cool heat-intensive technology in a small space is the mission of ACT. Its solutions are based on the principle of “two-phase heat transfer.” One example is a small pipe (a “heat pipe”) which is connected to a heat source, such as a microchip or processor. The heat pipe contains a working fluid that absorbs heat and evaporates into a vapor. The vapor then moves to a cooler part of the system, where it releases its heat and condenses back into a liquid. The liquid is then returned to the heat source, allowing the cycle to repeat.

When thinking about creating cutting-edge technologies, well-known tech hubs like the Bay Area or the Research Triangle come to mind – but ACT has been primarily located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania since its founding in 2003 when it was solely an R&D company.

Today, ACT employs more than 400 workers, most of which are in Lancaster (pronounced LANG-kiss-ter by locals). Lancaster County may be widely known in popular culture as the rolling farmlands of Amish Country, but in the heart of the county lies the vibrant City of Lancaster, frequently cited as one of the best places to live in the United States. The city and the surrounding region are full of thriving businesses, bustling foot traffic, and an affordable cost of living, making it a great place for businesses to operate and their employees to live.

“Lancaster is hard to beat,” says Say. “One minute you’re behind an Amish buggy, the next minute you’re talking about spacecraft and heat pipes – and somehow that all feels normal.”

The company has utilized the international team of BusinessPA, the state organization dedicated to helping companies grow and thrive, and its Regional Export Network partner, the World Trade Center in Harrisburg. “The BusinessPA team and the World Trade Center in Harrisburg helped us enter new markets around the world,” Say says. “They helped us develop export strategies and find customers and distributors through their offices abroad, and we’ve utilized them extensively through the years.”

Other groups like the Keystone Space Collaborative, the Pennsylvania Chamber, and Burle Business Park, where ACT is located, have supported the company as well. “All of it adds up to the fact that when we need support, we get it, both at the local and state levels,” Say says.

This ecosystem of support is why ACT is investing heavily in its future in Pennsylvania. In May 2026, ACT announced a major 50,000-square-foot expansion in Lancaster. The project includes constructing a new facility to strengthen the company’s manufacturing capabilities for AI data center cooling needs. "We’re super excited about this expansion,” Say says. "But we don’t just fixate on one thing – we’re very calculated and diverse in our approach to various industries, including data centers. This particular expansion significantly increases our manufacturing capacity, enabling us to produce more than 500,000 cold plates annually for the rapidly growing data center market, while maintaining our ability to serve customers across the other industries and applications where we have deep expertise.”

ACT’s goal is to become the best thermal management company in the world – and they plan on doing that from Pennsylvania. From humble roots in Lancaster, the company is a true success story for the central region of the Commonwealth. “To go from just a few people when we started to more than 400 now and maintaining our company culture, making the Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania list several years in a row – I think that’s a pretty amazing thing,” says Say. “Our people are working to solve literally the world’s toughest thermal management problems. And we’re proud to have that happening here in Pennsylvania.”