A chassis of an information handling system (IHS) includes a lateral segment that spans across a directional path of air travelling from an air intake side to an air exhaust side and including receiving affordances for insertion of a lateral support for a directional air mover. A user can select one of a first lateral support and a second lateral support that is insertable into the lateral segment and securable to the receiving affordances. The first lateral support has apertures of a first size to receive respective first fan modules and the second lateral support has apertures of a second size to receive respective second fan modules. An inserted one of the first and second lateral supports is selected based on a cooling air requirement corresponding to user selected compute components placed within the chassis to operate within the IHS.