40 Under 40: Travis Jank

He has built his career the same way he built his computers — by ignoring the conventional path and pushing the limits of what is possible.

"My education has been as unconventional as my career path, and I think that's what makes it relevant," said Travis Jank, founder and president of Krambu Inc. "I started with dual‑enrollment studies at Brigham Young University, then pursued business administration coursework at North Idaho College, which gave me the entrepreneurial foundation I needed to build and scale companies."

He later shifted his focus to HVACR technology, studying refrigeration and thermal dynamics at a deep level — a move that turned out to be the key to breakthroughs in liquid and cryogenic cooling for computing. Jank, founder and president of the artificial intelligence and data center infrastructure company Krambu, holds EPA Section 608 and 609 certifications through HVAC Excellence.

"It's that intersection of thermal engineering and computer science that's driven some of my most significant innovations, including cooling systems that bring CPUs to nearly 320 degrees below zero Fahrenheit," Jank said.

His path into high‑performance computing started early. After founding NexGen Computing, Jank grew it into a recognized innovator in HPC systems, gaining hands‑on experience across every layer of the stack, from thermal design to system integration. That work caught the attention of both NVIDIA and Intel, where he would spend more than a decade as a performance consultant. During that time, he engineered demo systems for events such as CES, GTC and IDF — and broke multiple world computing‑performance records using custom cryogenic liquid‑nitrogen cooling systems.

At the same time, he consulted for ASUS North America, helping build what became the Republic of Gamers brand from the ground up.

Ready for the next step, Jank co‑founded Krambu in 2017, taking everything he'd learned and building it into a full‑scale AI infrastructure company focused on pushing the limits of what data centers can do — while doing it more efficiently and sustainably than anyone else in the industry.

Jank credits being an entrepreneur since high school for teaching him that the only way to find your limits is to push past them.

"Early in my career, I was featured in an Intel documentary series for building what was considered the world's fastest, smallest and coldest computer — a project that required designing a custom cascade refrigeration system and refusing to accept conventional constraints," Jank said. "That experience set the tone for everything that followed. I've always believed the most important thing is to finish what you start and give 100% to everything you take on."

Outside of work, he loves spending time outdoors, doing everything from skiing and scuba diving to hunting and fly‑fishing.

"Nature has a way of reminding you what matters and reinforcing a commitment to protecting it," Jank said. "That connection to the environment is part of why sustainability and carbon‑neutral computing have become central to what Krambu is building."

Looking ahead, Jank plans to keep pushing beyond what is expected, choosing to create new technologies rather than follow what others are doing.

His next venture at Krambu is a cooling technology he believes will fundamentally change the data‑center industry. The company has deployed a fully functional prototype of a water‑based system that eliminates the need for synthetic refrigerants, dramatically reduces energy consumption and is more cost‑effective than conventional systems.

"Over the next decade, I want to see that technology deployed at scale and Krambu recognized as one of the defining companies of the AI infrastructure era," Jank said.

He also wants to give back, helping others achieve what he has — following their own path and creating the future.

"Beyond the business, I want to keep mentoring the next generation of engineers and entrepreneurs, showing them that you don't have to follow a conventional path to do extraordinary things," he said.

The advice would likely be similar to what he would tell his younger self.

"Trust the unconventional path," Jank said. "Every time I followed my curiosity into something that didn't look like a straight line — whether it was refrigeration engineering, cryogenic cooling or building a data‑center company in North Idaho — it turned out to be exactly the right move. The skills and perspectives that seem unrelated are often the ones that set you apart