As global temperatures rise, extreme heat is becoming one of the biggest threats to health and daily life.
Around 3.6 billion people already live in regions highly exposed to climate change, and between 2000 and 2019, heat was linked to more than 480,000 deaths each year.
Hot weather not only strains the body, it also reduces focus, productivity, and sleep quality.
To address this, researchers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) are designing the next generation of cooling clothes and wearable devices—garments that act more like smart machines than fabric.
Professor Dahua Shou, an expert in advanced textiles technologies at PolyU, leads this effort.
His team’s work, published in Science, outlines how sustainable, intelligent clothing can help people manage dangerous heat.
“According to the World Meteorological Organization, there’s an 80 percent chance that at least one year between 2025 and 2029 will be the hottest on record,” Shou said.
“We are developing garments that can provide adaptive cooling and even monitor health, to safeguard well-being and performance in extreme conditions.”
The researchers are exploring a mix of traditional cooling methods—radiation, conduction, convection, and evaporation—alongside artificial intelligence and smart textiles.
The idea is to create clothing that can sense body conditions and the environment, then actively adjust to keep the wearer cool.
These clothes aim to be lightweight, comfortable, and recyclable, offering a more sustainable alternative to heavy reliance on air conditioning.
One of their innovations is Omni-Cool-Dry, a breathable, skin-like fabric that reflects sunlight and ground heat while releasing body warmth as mid-infrared radiation.
It also directs sweat away from the skin, helping wearers stay dry. Tests show that Omni-Cool-Dry can lower skin temperature by about five degrees Celsius compared to regular fabrics.
Another breakthrough is iActive sportswear, which mimics the body’s own sweat glands. Powered by a low voltage, it pumps out perspiration through a root-like liquid network mapped to sweat zones.
This system removes sweat up to three times faster than the human body can manage, reducing fabric cling and helping the skin stay dry and comfortable during intense activity.
For people working in extreme environments, the team developed thermo-adaptive Soft Robotic Clothing.
This garment contains temperature-responsive actuators that change shape as heat rises, thickening the fabric to trap still air for insulation. In tests, it kept the inside surface of the garment 10 degrees cooler than regular insulating clothing, even when outside temperatures soared to 120 degrees Celsius.
The researchers are also pushing beyond cooling to include health monitoring. Their SweatMD device is a soft, textile-based wearable that channels fresh sweat through a tiny, nature-inspired network and uses sensing yarns to measure health markers like glucose and potassium.
The system can send real-time data on hydration and fatigue levels directly to a smartphone, making it a powerful tool for athletes, workers, and people with medical conditions.
Together, these innovations form what Shou describes as an “AI-ready ecosystem” of clothing. Sensors measure body signals, models predict cooling needs, and garments respond in real time. With integrated textile sensors, flexible coolers, and energy harvested from the body itself, future clothing may offer self-sustained, personalized cooling.
PolyU is working with research institutes and industry partners across Mainland China to bring these concepts closer to real-world use.
The team’s achievements have already earned international recognition, including top honors at the Geneva Invention Exhibition and the TechConnect Global Innovation Award.
While challenges remain—like improving sweat management and scaling up sustainable production—the vision is clear. Intelligent cooling clothing could soon help protect billions of people from the dangers of heat, redefining not just what we wear but how we live in a warming world.
