Nvidia turns to closed-loop liquid cooling for AI servers
Nvidia says its newest AI server design can sharply cut data center water use as concern grows over AI’s environmental demands.
By Daniel Okafor · Business Editor
3 min read
Nvidia said Monday that its latest AI server infrastructure will rely fully on liquid cooling, a shift the company says can cut water use in data centers. The announcement addresses a growing concern around AI facilities, which communities and researchers have linked to rising demand for water and electricity.
Fortune reported that residents near some data centers have complained about contaminated water, weak water pressure and unauthorized water siphoning. Those concerns have become part of a broader fight over the local effects of AI computing sites, alongside noise and power costs.
Nvidia said its new servers will replace air-cooling fans with a closed-loop liquid system. According to the company, the coolant is a mix of water and propylene glycol that circulates through the system rather than drawing new water for routine cooling.
Ali Heydari, Nvidia’s director of data center cooling and infrastructure, said in a company statement that the design removes large amounts of power demand and nearly all water use tied to cooling. Nvidia also said the coolant can work at temperatures as high as 45 degrees Celsius, or 113 degrees Fahrenheit.
Higher temperatures could reduce air conditioning
The higher operating temperature is one of the main changes in Nvidia’s design, according to Andrew A. Chien, a University of Chicago computer science professor quoted by Fortune. Chien said pushing liquid cooling temperatures up to 45 degrees Celsius can allow facilities to release heat outdoors without relying as heavily on HVAC systems or air conditioners, depending on outside conditions.
Chien directs the CERES Center for Unstoppable Computing, which Fortune said has spent the past decade studying data center efficiency and environmental impacts. He said the industry’s typical cooling standard is about 30 degrees Celsius, which requires more air conditioning to maintain.
According to Chien, warmer liquid cooling makes it easier to move heat out of a building because heat transfers more readily from a hotter supply. He told Fortune that zero water use is not realistic, but liquid cooling can lower the amount of water a data center needs.
AI water demand is under scrutiny
The timing of Nvidia’s announcement follows a United Nations estimate cited by Fortune that AI-related water consumption could reach the annual needs of 1.3 billion people by the end of the decade. That forecast has added pressure on technology companies to reduce the environmental costs of expanding AI infrastructure.
Nvidia is not alone in pursuing water-saving cooling designs. Fortune reported that Microsoft said in August 2024 that its new data centers would stop using water for cooling, a change Microsoft said would save more than 125 million liters of water a year at each data center.
Nvidia said a 50-megawatt hyperscale facility could save more than $4 million annually in cooling-related energy and water costs by shifting to liquid-cooled infrastructure. Fortune reported that Nvidia did not immediately answer questions about system costs or whether existing data centers would be retrofitted with the technology.
Chien told Fortune that the approach is one more operators should pursue because it can reduce the power consumed by large data centers. The cost of liquid cooling remains a hurdle, he said.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.