Yeah so they literally always could have done this. They probably only started now because there was so much of a stink being kicked up about it
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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Just cool with Cabernet Sauvignon, and you're also saving lots of water.
Why don't I believe this?
Datacenters: "It cost how much? Fuck that we need profit today not tomorrow. Fuck yo environment. Where we buildin next?"
The whole reason they don't do it already is that evaporative cooling saves on energy. So their energy consumption will go up if they want to save on water lol
Requiring any datacenter to also include a basin system with recycling of the water should be mandatory.
It doesnt matter how the datacenter is "too big" to handle that, build a bigger fucking pool.
Wow, they invented closed loop cooling.
I guess they will be completely blown away when they find out, that one can actually link data centers to distributed heating networks and thereby actually use the primary output of those premium priced electrical heating plants, instead of just wasting it and lots of water while doing so. Of course, for doing so one would have to properly plan those data centers and need more time developing them etc. And then it would take longer than this bubble might last so that is not an option.
I read a story of one datacenter years ago where their waste heat was heating the industrial complex around them. It was a nice change to see. Regulations around it would really help. Oh you want to do this? You need to reuse 80% of your waste heat to get approval, and have x% of power be renewable.
We know how do it, people just dont.
Industrial ecology. Like you said, it’s not new, just takes some effort.
They're using water cooling directly on each component, swapping heat sinks for water blocks. It's not a new idea, water cooled PCs have been doing it for a very long time, but never done at data centre scales as far as I know.
I thought that water cooled server gpus have been around for a while now, maybe I am mistaken.
Given how long water cooling has been around, I'm certain that technology is nothing new. I remember Linus Tech Tips trying to do something similar, where they water cooled all the video editing PCs on one big system.
Doing it on the scale of a data center will be something new though.
The world's fastest computers have been using them for a very long time. Though not data center sized, they are usually 100+ racks.
100%? So no water at all.
A closed loop system would achieve this, or at least after the initial filling of the system.
No closed loop system is 100% efficient. I worked in my youth with steam loop systems and even they developed leaks. Every few years needed to be shutdown and drained. 100% if they truly meant that is a fantasy/lie.
"Designed" to be 100%. Obviously there are some practical limits, like if something wears out or physically breaks / degrades over time. Limits on how well something can be sealed, etc.
If you have an automobile, how often are you topping off the radiator?
How often you change coolant in a automobile varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. If you have a Toyota you should replace it every two years or 30,000 miles. Everyone keeps trying to convince me its 100% but its not and it can't ever be. The infrastructure to achieve it is way too expensive. They will just drain the water table. We are not dealing with decent human beings.
Refilling the whole system every few years is a 99.99999+% reduction though. I'll give them a pass for rounding up on the headline or press release.
Eh, I think even if it's 99.9999% they should still round down to 99% to give the reader the knowledge that no it's not actually 100% even if it's miniscule. 99% is still super impressive. 100% means one thing and one thing only.
Do I need to smell that number? I think I know where it came from.
Lol, and now you're being persnickety about a 100,000th or 10,000th placeholder for the 9 in a forum comment. Do I need to smell your pits? I think we know how often you bathe. XD
Nope. Just the reality that I described one closed loop system while Data centers represents thousands of closed loop systems. You need to work on your responses. Your attempt at descibing the odor of my response has nothing to do with where I pulled it from. I pulled it from reality. That thing you try to create not the one we all live in.
This article fails to mention (I presume, after skimming it) that all these data centers aren’t using water because it is magically better suited for this job, it’s just cheap and abundant.
This “new cooling design” doesn’t mean shit when it doesn’t address the reason data centers are using so much water
They kinda do, they say that, because the coolant is so efficient at transferring energy, a data center will not need evaporative cooling.
It would be very interesting to know what the upper limit of air temperature would be.
They already don't need evaporative cooling. They just don't want to pay for closed loop systems because they're more expensive than evaporative cooling.
The solution exists, it's just not required so no one is paying to do it when they don't have to.
Existing systems rely on air to pass heat to a radiator, which then relays heat to the ambient air outside. In order to keep temperatures inside the data centre at sane levels, the cooling water needs to be below ambient temperature, which can be done with either chillers or evaporative cooling. Running a chiller takes a lot of electricity to say the least.
By exchanging heat between the chip and the cooling water directly, it seems they're claiming they can just have a heat exchanger with no chiller or evaporative cooling required. Which is probably true, it's why over clocked gaming PCs are often water cooled.
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Again, they’re not using water for its properties. Heat transfer efficiency is low on the list of priorities. Cost, both upfront and running, is the deciding factor
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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.
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Maybe so. But it would cost money. And companies just don’t do that in America.
It sounds like genuinely cool technology in multiple ways. A water block on every single major component, and no cooling fans at all.
That would also be a very quiet room, rather than having thousands of tiny little fans screaming all the time.
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Still gonna be using tons of energy, so hit me up when they claim 100% reduction in energy and I'm interested.
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