According to SamMobile, Samsung has established a dedicated thermal research team within its Production Technology Research Institute. The team is exploring various cooling solutions, including active liquid cooling and air cooling, to manage the thermal challenges of future flagship Galaxy phones under sustained high-performance AI workloads. Park Min, the director of the institute’s lab, stated that the team’s primary focus is to implement a liquid cooling cycle through a structure directly connected to the chip’s side. The liquid circulates within a sealed system, rapidly dissipating heat from the chip, achieving higher thermal efficiency than current vapor chamber solutions. Concurrently, the team is also researching air cooling, but noise and weight are the main drawbacks that need to be overcome. Current Samsung flagship models generally use vapor chamber cooling, and the latest Exynos 2600 chip also features enhanced thermal design. Active liquid cooling represents a further technological leap from this foundation.
In terms of industry context, Nubia has already implemented both liquid and air cooling in gaming phones, while OPPO and vivo also have models equipped with active air cooling, so there are precedents for mass production of this technical path. Samsung’s move to form a dedicated team led by its research institute is interpreted externally as a strategic move to lay the groundwork for the next-generation cooling architecture, against the backdrop of AI phones placing increasing demands on chip computing power. The research is currently in the technological exploration phase, with no specific product timeline disclosed.