Evertz ENX media core adds liquid cooling to cut power 25%

The shift toward liquid cooling in broadcast infrastructure signals a critical response to the thermal limits of traditional air-cooled racks as processing demands for UHD and IP workflows climb. By integrating glycol-mix cooling, Evertz allows facilities to pack significantly more compute power into the same physical footprint while lowering utility overhead. This move aligns with a broader industry trend where hardware vendors must solve for power efficiency to remain viable in modern, high-density media data centers. Watch for whether competitors adopt similar liquid-cooled architectures for their routing and processing frames at upcoming trade shows.

Evertz has been steadily expanding the ENX platform's footprint across broadcast and media operations. The company's MAGNUM-OS orchestration layer, which manages routing and signal processing across ENX frames, has been adopted by major broadcasters seeking unified control over hybrid SDI and IP environments. At IBC 2026, Evertz is showcasing its flexible media core architecture alongside FX-LINK and MAGNUM-OS integrations, positioning the ENX line as a converged platform for facilities transitioning between legacy and IP-native workflows. The liquid-cooled LQ variants represent the latest step in that convergence strategy, targeting high-density deployments where thermal headroom is the binding constraint.

The broader market for broadcast infrastructure hardware is consolidating around power efficiency as a primary differentiator. Competitors such as Grass Valley, Ross Video, and Lawo have all introduced higher-density processing frames in recent product cycles, though none have publicly announced liquid-cooled routing or processing configurations comparable to Evertz's 11RU and 18RU LQ units. Nokia's partnership with AWS and Databricks to build a unified telco data platform for autonomous networks illustrates how adjacent infrastructure sectors are similarly grappling with data-layer complexity and compute density, though in telecom rather than broadcast. The trend toward liquid cooling in media facilities mirrors what hyperscale data center operators adopted years earlier, and Evertz's move places it ahead of most broadcast-specific hardware vendors in addressing thermal limits at scale.

On the technical side, the ENX LQ configurations support both 12G-SDI and SMPTE ST 2110 natively within the same frame, a hybrid approach that reduces the need for separate gateway appliances during migration periods. The 25% reduction in cooling power is significant for facilities operating under strict energy budgets or sustainability mandates, particularly in European markets where regulatory pressure on data center energy consumption is intensifying. Ericsson's commercial AI in RAN software subscription, launched in June 2026, claimed up to 20% higher downlink throughput across more than 15 live deployments, demonstrating that efficiency gains of this magnitude are becoming a competitive baseline across infrastructure verticals. For Evertz, the ENX LQ line establishes a measurable efficiency benchmark that competitors will need to match or exceed in upcoming product announcements.