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Last Update: 10/27/2026 at 5:34 AM EST
Data Center Cooling
Coverage from Data Center Knowledge, ScienceDirect, and others
Data center cooling ranges from air-cooled and hybrid systems to direct-to-chip liquid cooling, rear-door heat exchangers, and immersion.
As GPU workloads raise rack heat loads, facility designs must coordinate coolant distribution, heat rejection, monitoring, and backup power while accounting for local water and energy constraints. Cooling choices also shape operating costs, reliability, and opportunities such as reusing recovered heat in district-heating networks. Understanding these systems helps explain how data centers manage thermal demands alongside power capacity and sustainability goals.
Key Articles4 of 78 articles
If you read one thing
It frames the shift to liquid cooling alongside facility retrofits and the separate constraints of grid power and deployment schedules.
Best explainer
It explains why direct-to-chip cooling supports rising rack densities while requiring integrated engineering, testing, and vendor accountability.
The evidence
Its quantified cooling-response lag illustrates a distinct operational reliability risk as AI workloads change rapidly.
The evidence
It adds modeled evidence on how cooling temperature and architecture can change water use, energy performance, and local tradeoffs.
Key Issues
AI rack density is pushing cooling beyond air-only designs
AI racks above conventional air-cooling ranges are driving direct liquid cooling, while hybrid systems accommodate dense accelerators alongside legacy air-cooled equipment. Rack-level approaches can also support phased deployment rather than whole-facility conversion.
Liquid cooling raises the stakes for operational integration
Direct liquid cooling couples server hardware to facility systems, making coolant quality, pressure, leak monitoring, and coordinated controls central to uptime. Fast workload changes can outpace cooling response, while shared control layers can undermine mechanical redundancy.
Cooling design balances water, energy, and local conditions
Closed-loop and warmer-temperature cooling can reduce on-site water use and expand free-cooling opportunities; some approaches also improve energy performance or enable heat reuse. Results and tradeoffs depend on climate, facility design, and local resource costs.
Key Numbers
approximately 1.5 K
remaining margin within the ASHRAE W32 operating envelope
“A third case at 300 K produced a stable result. The steady-state thermal-control-system supply temperature settled near 303.5 K, within the ASHRAE W32 envelope of 2–32 °C and with approximately 1.5 K of remaining margin.”
300 K
chiller outlet temperature setpoint
“A third case at 300 K produced a stable result. The steady-state thermal-control-system supply temperature settled near 303.5 K, within the ASHRAE W32 envelope of 2–32 °C and with approximately 1.5 K of remaining margin.”
303.5 K
steady-state thermal-control-system supply temperature
“A third case at 300 K produced a stable result. The steady-state thermal-control-system supply temperature settled near 303.5 K, within the ASHRAE W32 envelope of 2–32 °C and with approximately 1.5 K of remaining margin.”
87%
run time in full mechanical cooling
“The waterside economizer was engaged for about 98.6% of the run through combined partial mechanical and free-cooling operation, compared with 87% full mechanical cooling in the 297 K case. The result delivered a higher average chiller COP and lower PUE without the unbounded temperature rise observed at the higher setpoint.”
about 98.6%
run time during which the waterside economizer was engaged
“The waterside economizer was engaged for about 98.6% of the run through combined partial mechanical and free-cooling operation, compared with 87% full mechanical cooling in the 297 K case. The result delivered a higher average chiller COP and lower PUE without the unbounded temperature rise observed at the higher setpoint.”
Looking Back
153 Day Timeline
Jun 15
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The Story So Far
No material change
No new member articles were supplied, so there is no evidence of a material change in the Topic.
Previously
Data-center operators are adding direct liquid cooling and hybrid systems as AI racks generate more heat than conventional air cooling can readily manage. Liquid systems can support higher-density computing and may reduce cooling energy, but results depend on design and operating conditions; facilities must also coordinate power, coolant distribution, monitoring, and existing equipment. The shift is creating retrofit and reliability challenges, while power-supply constraints can still limit deployment schedules.
All Articles78 articles
Important
Data center operators are adopting more precise liquid-cooling controls as AI rack power rises across facilities using mixed air- and liquid-cooling architectures.
10/14/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Zhendong Li, Yu Wang, Kainaat Jamil, and Xiaolei Yuan review topology optimization for liquid-cooled data center heat exchangers in International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer.
10/1/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Data-center operators are deploying direct-to-chip liquid cooling for high-density AI racks as NVIDIA Blackwell-class GPUs increase heat and power requirements in modern facilities.
9/13/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
AI data center operators are evaluating absorption chillers that reuse waste heat from fuel cells, turbines and liquid-cooling loops at increasingly power-constrained campuses.
9/11/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Ecolab agreed to acquire CoolIT Systems for $4.75 billion, combining liquid-cooling equipment and fluid management for AI data centers in Calgary and other markets.
9/10/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
CoolIT is testing a 15kW coldplate prototype for data center cooling as AI chip power and package sizes increase.
9/10/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
NVIDIA thermal engineer Ajay Sekar identifies liquid-cooling control lag as a reliability risk for AI data centers during rapid accelerator power transitions.
9/7/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
DDC Solutions presented Tim Boyd's guidance on rack-level cooling for high-density GPU facilities during a Havtech session, addressing phased deployment, liquid cooling, redundancy, and monitoring.
9/3/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Schneider Electric is promoting closed-loop liquid cooling and higher operating temperatures to reduce water consumption in AI data centers amid rising resource scrutiny.
9/2/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Modelon used a physics-based simulation in Berlin weather conditions to identify a 300 K chiller setpoint that improved efficiency while maintaining stable cooling in a 1 MW AI data center.
9/1/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
DDC Solutions chief engineer Tom Demitras described rack-level containment for data centers as a way to cool denser AI workloads and expand facilities incrementally.
9/1/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Texas Instruments thermal-management executive Patrick Zeng described liquid cooling and advanced sensing as necessary for AI data centers facing rapidly increasing rack power.
8/31/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Schneider Electric published a white paper comparing four 100 MW datacenter cooling designs in Paris and Dallas, finding higher-temperature liquid cooling can reduce water use.
9/21/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
As AI computing demand grows, researchers and cooling experts in Virginia and California describe rising data-center heat and water demands and the shift toward liquid cooling.
10/13/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
As AI and high-performance computing demand grows, Belimo's Riccardo De Danieli describes rack-level liquid-cooling controls to reduce cooling power use at data centers.
10/2/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Data-center operators are adopting more integrated liquid-cooling strategies as AI and high-performance computing raise rack power density across modern computing facilities.
9/11/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Trane Technologies and European Data Centre Association representatives discussed AI data center cooling, water efficiency, modular deployment, and grid constraints in Season 6, Episode 1 of the Healthy Spaces podcast, with examples spanning Europe, Texas, and Milan.
9/8/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Data-center operators are deploying hybrid air and liquid cooling in existing and new facilities during the 2020s as AI rack densities increase.
9/7/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Researchers modeled a hybrid nuclear-solar absorption cooling system for a 30 MW data center in Abu Dhabi, using Barakah waste heat, solar collectors, and thermal storage.
8/6/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
OnZero and Helen agreed in Helsinki to connect a planned AI data center to district heating, with operations expected to start next year.
9/1/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Valar Atomics and NVIDIA demonstrated a helium-cooled, waterless AI data center concept at a Utah site on Wednesday using a small modular nuclear reactor.
7/2/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Valar Atomics and Nvidia announced Utah plans for a 30-megawatt AI data center using Ward250 nuclear power and water-efficient cooling.
7/1/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
As AI rack density rises, data center operators are integrating air-quality monitoring with airflow controls to limit contamination-related energy use, hardware degradation, and outages across facilities.
9/16/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
Researchers in Xinjiang, China developed a graph-prior method that reconstructs air-cooled data center temperature fields from sparse, noisy sensor measurements.
9/1/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Johns Hopkins researchers $750,000 in Baltimore to develop edge AI systems that optimize data center cooling.
8/31/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
Data center operators are adopting continuous coolant-quality monitoring as AI-driven rack densities increase, particularly in facilities using direct-to-chip cooling systems.
9/15/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
AI data center operators should track coolant chemistry and service history in liquid-cooled facilities to identify loop degradation before thermal disruptions.
9/14/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Vertiv examines data center cooling technologies for managing higher-density AI racks across server, rack and facility thermal systems.
9/10/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
European data center operators are expanding liquid cooling, heat recovery, and predictive fluid maintenance to manage rising AI workloads and thermal demands across Nordic facilities.
9/6/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the University of Tsukuba developed a motor-free solid-state cooling prototype in Germany and Japan for potential data center use.
9/2/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Data-center operators are integrating liquid cooling and power planning as AI deployments face rising rack densities and multiyear grid interconnection delays, including at TeraWulf's Lake Mariner campus in Buffalo, New York.
7/29/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Water demand forecasts and cooling designs are reshaping AI data center expansion, with waterless two-phase systems reducing water consumption and potential permitting friction.
7/27/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Vertiv expanded thermal management capacity and launched PurgeRite NearZero, aiming to reduce water waste for hyperscale liquid cooling in AI data center buildouts.
6/27/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
LG launched an air-cooled, oil-free centrifugal chiller for AI data centers, with no launch date or location specified in the provided material.
9/21/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
AirJoule Technologies acquired South Carolina cooling and switchgear company BitSink in 2025 to support AI and high-performance computing data center infrastructure, including a planned Texas campus.
9/16/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
During design and commissioning at data centers, operators should test whether cooling equipment continues basic operation when shared control systems or communication paths fail.
10/1/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
A white paper explains why data center operators using direct-to-chip liquid cooling can realize larger power savings than PUE measurements indicate.
9/9/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
Researchers developed and evaluated a tensor-based neural-network method for rapid three-dimensional temperature reconstruction in an air-cooled data center in September 2026.
9/1/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
Industry leaders in 2026 described hybrid quantum-classical architectures that integrate QPUs with data-center GPU and CPU systems, with cooling and integration requirements highlighted.
7/15/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
OData began installing Aligned Data Centers' DeltaFlow liquid-cooling system in Brazil and Mexico, with phase one underway at SP04 and QR03 facilities.
9/21/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
LG Electronics introduced an air-cooled, oil-free inverter turbo chiller for global AI data center customers, using magnetic bearings and refrigerant free cooling to reduce electricity consumption.
9/20/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Stulz launched TelAir 4 and WallAir 4 air-cooling systems for Edge data centers and telecommunications facilities, offering 6kW to 17kW capacities in indoor and external configurations.
9/7/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Daikin Industries and NTT DATA Japan begin an AI cooling proof of concept in July 2026 with testing at an NTT DATA data center in Japan through March 2027.
7/6/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Valar Atomics and NVIDIA plan to scale a helium-cooled waterless AI data center in Emery County, Utah, after reactor criticality in a San Rafael Energy Lab sandbox.
7/4/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Nvidia announced closed-loop liquid cooling for new AI servers, aiming to reduce data center water use as water and power scrutiny increases.
6/22/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Nvidia announced at London Climate Week that warm recirculated liquid cooling could reduce data-center water consumption for next-generation AI infrastructure.
6/22/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Jabil is hiring a principal mechanical integration engineer in Austin, Texas, or remotely to develop cooling and power systems for data center infrastructure through October 31, 2026.
9/17/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Trane vice president Becky Wacker described AI-driven cooling and power challenges for data centers during a DCD Talks episode.
8/28/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Researchers in Chongqing, China, found that coordinated aisle geometry, rack deployment, and CRAC operation improved thermal conditions in a row-cooled data center.
7/31/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Southwest Research Institute launched the Data Center Immersion Fluids Consortium to develop independent testing and standards for immersion cooling used in data-center equipment.
7/30/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
AirJoule Technologies announced a 15.0 million registered direct offering to commercialize AirJoule Core and AirJoule Prime systems for waste-heat-driven cooling and distilled water production.
7/1/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Engineers discussed hybrid air/liquid cooling for AI data centers, linking direct liquid cooling thresholds and free-cooling operation to local water-use code constraints.
6/17/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Nvidia announced Vera Rubin AI server cooling that uses hotter closed-loop coolant and dry coolers to reduce onsite water use in data centers.
7/2/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
NVIDIA outlines Rubin AI infrastructure liquid cooling, using closed-loop coolant and outdoor dry coolers to reduce energy, water use, and noise in data centers.
7/20/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Nvidia announced warm-water closed-loop cooling aimed at reducing data center on-site water use, while analysis links remaining water impacts to USA fossil and hydropower electricity.
6/22/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Interesting
AirTrunk and Emergence Quantum signed a memorandum in 2020s to study cryogenic cooling for quantum-ready data centers across Asia-Pacific.
9/15/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
Airius is promoting variable-speed destratification fans for improving airflow and return-air movement in large air-cooled and hybrid data centers.
9/12/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
Motivair reference designs for GPU-based AI factories outline liquid cooling architectures and heat-rejection choices in Dallas and San Francisco.
7/20/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Stantec discusses liquid cooling designs for AI data centers, linking closed-loop heat removal, higher rack power density, and LEED Optimize Energy Performance modeling.
6/24/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
AI data center operators are moving from CFD-only thermal design to liquid-cooling system simulation and digital twins to handle GPU-localized heat loads.
6/23/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
NVIDIA reports Rubin AI infrastructure with closed-loop liquid cooling and dry-cooler-based operation to reduce hyperscale cooling energy and water use.
6/22/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Ecolab is acquiring Calgary-based CoolIT for $4.75 billion to provide closed-loop chip cooling and water-management services for artificial intelligence data centers.
7/31/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Accelsius research on two-phase coolant systems for Nvidia B200 accelerator racks claims higher facility water temperatures can reduce datacenter energy use, citing hardware and supply barriers.
7/21/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
In 2025, Meta introduced IcePack and expanded closed-loop liquid cooling across AI data centers to reduce water use and support denser GPU deployment.
8/27/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Brien Posey explains in a video and transcript how data-center operators can use liquid cooling to manage rising heat from dense AI and high-performance computing racks.
8/25/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Gregory Alexander of Motivair by Schneider Electric outlines PG25 coolant selection and fluid-management practices for liquid-cooled AI data centers.
8/22/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Data center operators are adopting lower-GWP refrigerants and immersion cooling to manage AI heat loads and improve equipment reliability worldwide.
7/29/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Parker engineers discuss pumped two-phase cooling requirements for high-density data center racks, emphasizing vapor quality control, refrigerant selection, and low-permeation tubing.
7/23/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Researchers analyze single-phase immersion cooling for high-heat-flux AI chips, finding flow confinement and open-ratio control can reverse dielectric-fluid performance rankings.
7/14/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Lehigh University Energy Research Center presented an ANSYS Fluent CFD framework in October 2025 that validated and optimized cooling airflow in a crypto-mining facility.
7/10/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Clemson University plans to hire a Data Center Engineer for CCIT data centers, covering power generation, mechanical cooling maintenance, and 24x7 on-call response.
7/26/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
QCaaS plans require rack-integrated quantum facilities with cryogenics, low-noise power, optical connectivity, and automated calibration to support always-on, microsecond-latency control loops.
7/22/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
Schneider Electric executive Matthew Baynes recommends cooling upgrades and operational analytics for European and United Kingdom data centers facing heatwaves and denser AI workloads.
8/17/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
KühlTherm launched liquid-cooling hardware and an integrated validation laboratory in Ahmedabad, India, in 2026 while targeting manufacturing expansion by 2027.
8/11/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
TNO formed CoolMicro and recruited a CEO in Eindhoven, Netherlands, to commercialize microfluidic phase-change cooling for AI and high-performance computing.
7/16/2026 • Water & Cooling • General
Ventiva developed a back-of-rack ionic air mover to support direct-to-plate liquid cooling by maintaining temperatures for NIC, storage cards, and DIMM components after front bulk fan removal.
7/17/2026 • Technology & Operations • General
Additional
Ecolab completed a US$4.75b early acquisition of CoolIT Systems to expand liquid cooling for high-density data centers and semiconductor fabs.
7/3/2026 • Market Demand & Investment • General
Comfort Systems USA reports doubled hyperscale cooling backlog and Modine signs a $4B chiller contract as Eaton expands thermal-related acquisitions.
6/15/2026 • Market Demand & Investment • General