As power densities rise across EVs, aerospace, and electronics, thermal management has quietly become one of engineering's hardest unsolved problems because conventional design methods can't explore the geometries that physics demands.

This talk explores how physics-driven generative design, combined with additive manufacturing, is fundamentally changing what's possible. We'll walk through why traditional thermal design has hit a ceiling, what it means to let the physics — not only human intuition — define component geometry, and why AM is the enabling condition that makes it all manufacturable.

Drawing on real applications in cold plates, heat exchangers, vaporizers, and electronics cooling, we'll show what the performance gains look like in practice, how the design workflow has changed, and what this means for engineers building thermal systems today.