Ventiva showcases ICE9 fan-less laptop cooling solution capable of handling 100W TDP

Ventiva has showcased its fanless ICE9 thermal management system at Computex 2025, enabling quieter, slimmer laptops with efficient cooling through electrohydrodynamic (EHD) airflow.

Ventiva has demonstrated its ICE9 thermal management system at Computex 2025 to cool a laptop thermal test vehicle with a thermal design power (TDP) of 100 watts. The system leverages the company's Ionic Cooling Engine (ICE) technology to cool without using fans.

Traditionally, the cooling of hot computers used spinning fans to move air at rapid speeds to draw away damaging heat. However, this results in much noise at higher fan speeds, limiting where laptops can run hot but still be acceptable to both the user and others nearby.

Ventiva ICE ionizes air to create electrohydrodynamic airflow. The technology is smaller and quieter than fans because it has no moving blades to create wind noise or motors to create electronics whine. This also allows laptops to be smaller or pack bigger batteries.

The company has also shown a Compal laptop concept at the expo with a 45-watt TDP. Compal is a major ODM manufacturer of laptops for companies such as Acer and Dell. This means the Ventiva ICE technology is one step closer to use in the commercial production of thinner, lighter, quieter laptops and gaming handhelds.

EHD technology is physically limited by the maximum pressure that it can generate, a factor of air pressure and temperature. This suggests an EHD cooling solution for high-end gaming laptops that draw over 400 watts, such as the XMG Neo 16, will require further R&D, as the company has only only demonstrated 45- and 100-watt prototypes.

EHD devices naturally generate ozone, which the company says is neutralized by built-in catalysts and meets all regulatory requirements. Physically, these devices have no moving parts, and the company claims to have developed proprietary workarounds to prevent premature emitter wearout. Similar to a fan, replacing the EHD cooling unit can be as simple as removing a few screws, although this depends on a manufacturer's laptop design.

Readers who are annoyed by the whine of their desktops can buy a silent, fanless PC like this one on Amazon.