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

blogs.nvidia.com

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

#361

Post by jason_s »

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.

article also says:

"The geography caveat matters. A data center in the Scottish Highlands and one in Phoenix, Arizona, face very different realities. But even in warmer climates, the shift toward 45-degrees-Celsius coolant moves operators significantly closer to that chiller-less ideal — where chillers may turn on just a few days a year when the outside air temperature demands it."

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

#362

Post by kingofmen »

Points for effort, but this will do literal nothing to appease the opposition, since the "water use" thing is a myth anyway. It's probably good, it sounds like it will be more efficient and efficiency saves resources for other uses, but politically it's completely useless.

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

#363

Post by croes »

__alexs wrote: post #355
croes wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess parent means the heat has to somewhere, closed system or not. Some nuclear power plants use rivers and lakes, that’s bad for their ecosystems if it’s too much but this system uses dry coolers so the extra heat should be negligible

It goes to space like all the other heat does otherwise we'd be living on a ball of gently rotating lava.

The question is, where does it go before.

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

#364

Post by senordevnyc »

amiga386 wrote: post #180
annzabelle wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Northern Virginia, (of AWS US-East-1, MAE-East, and Equinix fame), where there are more data centers than anywhere else in the world, and I never heard organized opposition to them until the last couple of years. They were mainly viewed as a way for Loudoun County to build their industrial tax base without the downsides of having industrial workers, and allowed them to consistently lower property taxes w…

You got good data centres, and their construction and operation were likely regulated. The problem is that apparently you can just ignore that by building in poor places that won't hold you accountable and perhaps don't even have the regulations. If they do, just don't comply with them. Then your gas turbines can be as loud as you like, nobody will stop you. There's this one weird trick where you can pretend your gen…

Well yeah, if you vote to have fucktards run your state or county, you’re going to live under fucktard conditions.

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

#365

Post by collabs »

nashashmi wrote: post #356
crunchiepooker wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d love that heat in the winter. Imagine, free heat! Linus heats his pool with excess cpu heat. It’s all about using things wisely and not panicking. AI and datacenters are here to stay, you can’t fight them, but you can leverage their waste for profit.

If you don't fight data centers, data centers won't seek solution oriented ways to lower their footprint. You are really saying that you can't fight data center demand. And that is true, but you can restrain their supply, increase their cost, and optimize on low impact approaches.

> If you don't fight data centers, data centers won't seek solution oriented ways to lower their footprint. You are really saying that you can't fight data center demand. And that is true, but you can restrain their supply, increase their cost, and optimize on low impact approaches.

Not that this is an apples to apples comparison but imagine people saying that about nuclear reactors. Yes, we want them to be as safe as possible and as efficient as possible but that doesn't mean we don't build it. And at the risk of being a NIMBY, AI data centers don't have to be located right next to my house. Unlike regular data centers, these can and should be in the frigid cold. That would probably be for the best anyway. All it needs is redundant fiber network connection, right? Also we should probably require all AI data centers to use renewable energy only. All these are doable but the fight against AI data centers has to be practical and solutions oriented, not fighting it for the sake of fighting it.

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

#366

Post by jmartrican »

kingofmen wrote: post #362

Points for effort, but this will do literal nothing to appease the opposition, since the "water use" thing is a myth anyway. It's probably good, it sounds like it will be more efficient and efficiency saves resources for other uses, but politically it's completely useless.

Do you have any references for this comment: '"water use" thing is a myth anyway'. I would like to show my kid who keeps complaining to me about AI water usage.

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

#367

Post by senordevnyc »

pdoege wrote: post #171
amluto wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been to datacenters, but not the huuuge ones people seem to talk about in the context of AI. They are noisy inside (due to air cooling, which is largely avoided by the tech in the OP), but they’re entirely unremarkable outside compared to any other commercial or industrial building. Computers are not inherently loud, nor is power conversion. Power plants are all over, even in populated areas. They’re not so bad…

When I was building data enters in populated areas there were regulations for noise, visual signature, power usage, and etc. It looks like a lot of these newer sites are in low regulation areas. Which is great for profit margin, and not so great for neighbors.

Sounds like the “don’t tread on me” crowd is about to find out the value of regulation.

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

#368

Post by rcpt »

jmartrican wrote: post #366
kingofmen wrote: post #362

Points for effort, but this will do literal nothing to appease the opposition, since the "water use" thing is a myth anyway. It's probably good, it sounds like it will be more efficient and efficiency saves resources for other uses, but politically it's completely useless.

Do you have any references for this comment: '"water use" thing is a myth anyway'. I would like to show my kid who keeps complaining to me about AI water usage.

https://blog.andymasley.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake

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

#369

Post by CalRobert »

kingofmen wrote: post #362

Points for effort, but this will do literal nothing to appease the opposition, since the "water use" thing is a myth anyway. It's probably good, it sounds like it will be more efficient and efficiency saves resources for other uses, but politically it's completely useless.

It always seemed weird - where does the water go, after all? I gather it isn't turned in to H2 and O2. I assume it leaves the data center hotter than when it came in, which seems like the real issue?

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

#370

Post by superxpro12 »

jmartrican wrote: post #366
kingofmen wrote: post #362

Points for effort, but this will do literal nothing to appease the opposition, since the "water use" thing is a myth anyway. It's probably good, it sounds like it will be more efficient and efficiency saves resources for other uses, but politically it's completely useless.

Do you have any references for this comment: '"water use" thing is a myth anyway'. I would like to show my kid who keeps complaining to me about AI water usage.

how does this square against georgia just ignoring it draining the water supply,

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-center...

and reports of undrinkable water due to the ai center construction?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy8gy7lv448o

even in the article you linked, it admits AI data centers CAN harm water supplies

"Individual data centers can sometimes stress local water systems in the way other industries do, but when you use AI, you are not contributing to a significant problem for water management compared to most other things you do in your day to day life. "

What is the point youre trying to make?

He also posits in the popular NYT article about a data center sucking up all the water: "But the reason their taps ran dry (which the article itself says) was entirely because of sediment buildup in groundwater from construction. It had nothing to do with the data center’s normal operations (it hadn’t begun operating yet, and doesn’t even draw from local groundwater). The residents were wronged by Meta here and deserve compensation, but this is not an example of a data center’s water demand harming a local population."

And its like he claims "its not ai data centers themselves, its the construction of them" as if its an important distinction that exempts data centers from harm. It's not.

One day, the data center wasnt there, now it is. And the sudden presence of that DC caused the water problems.

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