History of Air Conditioning Timeline

The first domestic air-conditioning system was installed in Minneapolis in the home of Charles Gilbert Gates.

H. H. Schultz and J. Q. Sherman developed what would become the most common type of individual room air conditioner: a unit designed to sit on a window ledge.

Individual room air-conditioning units went on sale in 1932 for US$10,000 to $50,000, equivalent to approximately $200,000 to $1,200,000 in 2025 dollars.

A year after room air conditioners went on sale, the first air-conditioning systems for cars were offered for sale.

Image source: Automotive air conditioning

Chrysler Motors introduced the first practical semi-portable air-conditioning unit, an important step toward more flexible residential and commercial cooling.

Packard became the first automobile manufacturer to offer an air-conditioning unit in its cars.

Robert Sherman of Lynn, Massachusetts, invented a portable, in-window air conditioner that could cool, heat, humidify, dehumidify, and filter air.

Henry Galson developed a more compact and inexpensive version of the in-window air conditioner. More than 43,000 units had been sold by 1947.

Ned Cole, a 1939 architecture graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, developed the first experimental suburb with built-in air conditioning in every house.

Toshiba sold the first mini-split system in Japan, beginning the development of a compact form of air conditioning suited to homes without extensive ductwork.

Mitsubishi Electric sold the first wall-mounted mini-split air conditioner in Japan. Small home sizes in Japan helped motivate the development of this design.

The first mini-split air conditioner was sold in the United States, extending the technology beyond its initial Japanese market.

Daikin invented multi-zone ductless air-conditioning systems, allowing several indoor units to be connected within a larger system.

The first inverter air conditioners were released during 1980–1981. Inverter technology enabled more flexible control of compressor speed and cooling output.

Daikin invented variable refrigerant flow systems, which can be understood as larger multi-split systems capable of serving multiple zones.

The proportion of urban households in China with air conditioners increased from 8% to 70% between 1995 and 2004.

Between 2010 and 2023, air-conditioner use in India tripled to 24 units per 100 households. Ownership was highest in Haryana, Chandigarh, Rajasthan, and Delhi, and lowest in Meghalaya, Tripura, Manipur, and Himachal Pradesh.

Nearly 100 million homes in the United States, or about 87% of U.S. households, had air-conditioning systems as of 2015.

An estimated 1.6 billion air-conditioning units were in use worldwide in 2016. More than half were in China and the United States, with a total cooling capacity of 11,675 gigawatts.

In 2019, an estimated 90% of new single-family homes constructed in the United States included air conditioning, ranging from 99% in the South to 62% in the West.

A 2020 survey estimated that 88% of all U.S. households used air conditioning. The share rose to 93% among homes built between 2010 and 2020.

As of 2025, roughly half of homes in Italy, 40% of homes in Spain, and 20% to 25% of homes in France had air conditioning.

Engineering studies of traditional buildings helped revive and modify passive cooling techniques for twenty-first-century architectural designs.

The August 2003 heatwave in France resulted in approximately 15,000 deaths. About 80% of the victims were over 75 years old.

Image source: 2003 European heatwave

Passive radiative daytime cooling systems underwent a surge of research and development from the 2010s. They were predicted to represent an indoor-space-cooling market of approximately $27 billion by 2025.

In 2018, the International Energy Agency predicted that the number of air-conditioning units would grow to around four billion by 2050, with total cooling capacity reaching approximately 23,000 GW and the biggest increases occurring in India and China.

Image source: International Energy Agency

An IEA report predicted that electricity use for space cooling could reach around 6,200 TWh by 2050. Without stronger efficiency progress, greenhouse-gas emissions from space cooling were projected to rise from 1,135 million tons in 2016 to 2,070 million tons.

A 2021 report estimated that around 345,000 people aged 65 and older died from heat in 2019, describing many of these deaths as preventable with air conditioning.

Image source: Heat wave

A 2020 study found that areas with lower use of air conditioning correlated with higher rates of heat-related mortality and hospitalizations.

As of 2022, air conditioning used about 7% of global electricity and emitted approximately 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions.