45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero • Hacker News Board

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#341

Post by cududa » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 2:34 PM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #333

PurpleRamen wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, that's why they want Greenland so bad. Low temperature, many free spaces, no significant nature and if there is one, not enough citizen who can complain. And if they still need water for cooling, there is probably enough from the melting ice they can use.

All the money they save on water cooling will be spent on massive undersea fiber lines to move the data to and from the island.

Ah yes but you can shunt the costs of that off into a public works/ taxpayer funded infrastructure project

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#342

Post by crypttales » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#343

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 2:38 PM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #333

PurpleRamen wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, that's why they want Greenland so bad. Low temperature, many free spaces, no significant nature and if there is one, not enough citizen who can complain. And if they still need water for cooling, there is probably enough from the melting ice they can use.

All the money they save on water cooling will be spent on massive undersea fiber lines to move the data to and from the island.

[deleted]

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#344

Post by sebzim4500 » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

bozhark wrote: post #84

derac wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the unfathomable reason is that it is significantly more energy efficient.

Then it’s not being measured adequately. The loss of material must be included If water is evaporated or spent out of the system.. it is not more efficient

I would guess that evaporative cooling is usually still cheaper even if you price in externalities. In most of the world there isn't really a shortage of water.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#345

Post by rafram » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

cududa wrote: post #341

glitchc wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the money they save on water cooling will be spent on massive undersea fiber lines to move the data to and from the island.

Ah yes but you can shunt the costs of that off into a public works/ taxpayer funded infrastructure project

The vast, vast majority of submarine cable projects are paid for with private money. I'm only aware of a few in the US that have received any public grants (all connecting relatively unprofitable areas like Hawaii, kind of analogous to the Essential Air Service program).

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#346

Post by rafram » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

expedition32 wrote: post #304

coldtea wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI and datacenters are here to stay, you can’t fight them Sounds more like a threat than something desired

They were banned in my country through a democratic process. Ofcourse it is easier when they are all owned by foreign companies lol. If they actually made money and provided jobs (lmao) it might be different.

I'm not sure which country that is, but it would have to be on a different planet! No country on Earth has banned data centers.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#347

Post by petit_robert » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #318

coldtea wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden on proof should be on "dumping hot water to a river doesn't damage its ecosystem" rather than the opposite...

That’s not what they are doing > capture heat directly at the source and transport it to outdoor dry coolers, essentially large radiator coils positioned outside the building. The heat goes into the air

>The heat goes into the air

Can confirm : I'm reading this from France, we're in the 8th day of the meanest heatwave the country has known since records exist, and it's expected to last two more.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#348

Post by goodpoint » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 2:48 PM UTC

PurpleRamen wrote: post #327

FridgeSeal wrote: post #228

> In the right geography — somewhere with reliably cool outdoor air Aaahh, there’s the catch. “Save resources on cooling by building your data centre somewhere cold, and pollute the surrounding environment by dumping your waste heat wholesale into that!” Good job Nvidia, I almost thought we had something good there.

Maybe, that's why they want Greenland so bad. Low temperature, many free spaces, no significant nature and if there is one, not enough citizen who can complain. And if they still need water for cooling, there is probably enough from the melting ice they can use.

No, datacenters are placed near cities because the biggest concern is workforce.

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#349

Post by rglover » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 2:53 PM UTC

Semi-related. I think a better solution to this DC problem (and a nice revenue stream for vendors) is to figure out something like this [1][2] at scale. Basically, instead of saying "we're going to subsidize our DC build outs by increasing your energy costs," say "if we can install a small compute node that receives workloads in your house (make it a kit so it's easy), you get the heat for 'free.'"

I'm ignorant to the specifics of how this might work (and whether it'd even be feasible at a cost/logistics level), but it feels far less invasive and far more sustainable as an armchair thought. Curious if anyone has worked on something like this and what sort of gotchas you've found.

[1] https://www.heata.co/

[2] https://thermify.cloud/how-it-works/

Re: 45°C cooling design cuts data center water use to near zero

#350

Post by maerF0x0 » Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 2:54 PM UTC

> and the same liquid can be recirculated in a closed loop so no new water is consumed to cool the chips

That doesn't mean a datacenter doesn't have a very high _initial_ need for water, or to replace _some_ amount of leakage, replacement etc (agreed it will be way lower than say a swamp cooler). For example, they could be using millions of gallons as a sort of "ballast" to keep the water temperature very stable in the short run.

This whole projects depends on the whole stack of components to be able to tolerate 45c from memory, drives, the lighting of the building, the humans ...