Chilled Infrastructures
How are data centers cooled, and how do these cooling systems affect their surrounding environment?
Data Center Cooling Types
Air Cooling
Air cooling is a data center cooling method that uses fans and air conditioning units (often wi...
Liquid Cooling
Liquid cooling is a data center cooling method that uses liquid coolants (often water) to absor...
Immersion Cooling
Immersion cooling is a data center cooling method where IT equipment is directly submerge...
Free Cooling
Free cooling is a data center cooling method that takes advantage of local climate or geologic fe...
Impacts of Cooling
Visualizing Water Consumption: US Data Centers
In 2023 alone, US data centers consumed an estimated 17 billion gallons of water. That's 52,171...
Visualizing Water Consumption: Hyperscale Data Centers
Just one hyperscale data center uses about 200 million gallons of water per year; enough wate...
Visualizing Water Consumption: Non-potable vs Potable
This figure highlights the contrast between city rainfall and the scale of water consumption by...
Comparing Impacts by Cooling Type
Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) = Facility power (kWh)/IT equipment power (kWh) Water Usage Ef...
Trends in Data Center Efficiency
Recent years have witnessed a shift in the U.S. data center size, with the top panel showing ho...
Data Centers in Hot, Dry Climates
In hot, dry climates, the high water demand from data centers can put immense pressure on the l...
Data Centers in Coastal Areas
Image: A Google data center in Finland that utilizes seawater cooling Coastal areas may appear...
Case Studies
Marseille, France
In Marseille, France, a European data center company called Interxion uses a form of liquid-bas...
Mesa, Arizona
Image: Apple's data center in Mesa, Arizona In 2021, the City Council of Mesa, Arizona approve...
Chicago, Illinois
Image: QTS is seeking to build a second data center at the property located at 2800 S. Ashland ...