this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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Technology
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This cooling tech sounds exactly like the radiator in my car.
It's genuinely the same idea. It's also something that has been done for many years in PCs, but not on the scale of a data center.
However, radiators in your car are also effective due to a constant airflow over them as they are moving. Datacenters don’t move, so what will help that transfer?
Convection? Just install chimneys with the radiator at the base. That can even be coupled with fan driven generators. Fairly old tech too.
My car has this ancient technology called a "fan" to move air over the radiator when its running but not moving.
Well, that's pretty cutting edge, it's only been used since the beginning of the last century.
Wait....do you think no air is pushed over the radiator without it moving? Clutch fans and electric fans run when you're stuck in traffic or idling. They turn on or off when the tstat tells them to (minus clutch fans that run off the engines own power).
My point was more about forced airflow, whether it be the movement of the car (less use of energy, as you’re using the motion of the air to provide airflow) or if you’re sitting still you have those fans, which are a power draw. In the case of a DC, you’d always have to have a fan to do what a car does passively. So that increases, cost, energy use and complexity.
Most DC builders are avoiding closed loop systems already as they’re more expensive.
I see, I don't understand why they're not doing thermal cooling. Just a little below the surface the temp is like 50-55, cooling liquid down from that level is a lot easier than doing it from 100+ in a desert. Go closed loop then...and build these things in the middle of no where, where no one lives...then power them off solar and nuclear power.....or just don't build them because no one wants this shitty clippy 2.0 anyways.
Being bigger. They don't move so they can be huge.