Corintis: The Venture Leader Technology that unlocks a new dimension in cooling

05.04.2022 10:30, Isabelle Mitchell

The Venture Leaders Technology expert jury had their work cut out for them this year: They had to look through 180 applications to choose the 10 members of the Swiss National Startup team that will travel to Silicon Valley in April. Before the 10 entrepreneurs meet with international investors and industry leaders to strengthen their business network and advance their globalization, we want to introduce you to each of the 10 Venture Leaders Technology 2022: Meet Sam Harrison, the co-founder and COO of Corintis.

Powerful computer chips produce about 10x more concentrated heat than an electric kettle. But heat and electronics do not go well together: High temperatures limit performance and reduce efficiency, so good cooling is essential. Current heat extraction methods cannot keep up with the increasing heat, and they are also wasteful—around 30% of electricity in a data center is used to keep chips cool. Lausanne-based Corintis resolves this issue. The startup’s semiconductor technologies extract heat using microscopically small liquid cooling channels within the chip. Corintis’ solution enables chip designers to adapt these channels to the layout of their device to obtain a 10x increase in heat extraction. This process resolves the fundamental heat limitations holding back the future of computing. 
 
Name: Sam Harrison 
Location: Lausanne
Nationality: British 
Graduated from: International Space University, MSc, 2016 
Job title: Co-founder and COO of Corintis 
Number of employees: 5 
First touchpoint with Venturelab: Venture Kick Stage 1 in 2021
 
Sam, could you summarize what Corintis does? 
We provide microfluidic in-silicon liquid cooling solutions to enable the future of sustainable high-performance computing.  
 
How and where did you come up with the idea for your startup?
Remco [the Corintis co-founder and CEO] and I were tracking the ever-increasing heat output of top-end GPU/CPU chips used in data centers. It became clear that new approaches to cooling would be needed to address the performance and efficiency implications of this, particularly regarding reducing the need for air conditioning in data centers. Inspired by the research at EPFL and CERN, we were confident we could develop solutions to tackle the challenges this market is facing.
 
What do you expect from the Venture Leaders Technology roadshow, and how will it help you achieve your vision?
We would love to meet with potential partners and investors and get advice on setting up a sales and marketing office in the US. This would be particularly helpful as many of our potential customers are concentrated on the West Coast of the US. Expanding our pool of potential investors for our Seed round to include more US investors could also help unlock additional doors for us by building on the great existing network of investors we already have.

What was your dream job when you were a child?  
To be an astronaut, but there are many better-qualified candidates for the role. I unfortunately also exceed the ESA height requirement: Applicants cannot be taller than 190 cm, and I am 193 cm.   
 
What is your favorite movie? 
The Martian by Ridley Scott is one of my favorite movies because of its mix of suspense and scientific content.  
 
What is your favorite book?  
Energy and Civilization: A History by Vaclav Smil: This is an incredible book that walks you through human history and civilization from the perspective of energy and how past communities were structured around energy and their use of it.  
 
Where and when are you most productive? 
Late morning after sufficient amounts of English breakfast tea.
 
What is the most rewarding aspect of being a founder?  
Having the opportunity to bring together an amazing group of people to tackle interesting problems.  
 
What is the best advice you have ever received?  
One of our investors reminded us to consider the half-life validity of someone’s advice. For example, what makes a good lawyer today will probably still have applied 2000 years ago, whereas some technical advice on what is/is not possible can quickly go out of date. This is particularly true in new technical fields such as machine learning.  


For more information and updates on Corintis and the Venture Leaders Technology 2022, follow #VLeadersTech on social media and on www.venture-leaders.ch/technology.

The Venture Leaders Technology 2022 program is organized by Venturelab and supported by dpd Switzerland, EPF Lausanne, ETH Zurich, Kellerhals Carrard, Rothschild & Co, and the Canton of Vaud.