Nvidia has announced a warm-water, closed-loop cooling system that eliminates on-site water consumption in AI data centers. The design, unveiled during London Climate Week, uses coolant that enters server racks at 45°C (113°F) and exits at 55°C (131°F), recirculating in a sealed loop that requires no evaporative top-offs.
“Pretty much all water usage inside the data center” has been eliminated, Nvidia chief sustainability officer Josh Parker told Axios.
The system works by running coolant at temperatures high enough that outside air in most climates can passively dissipate the heat through radiators, eliminating the need for water-intensive evaporative cooling towers and mechanical chillers. In favorable climates, Nvidia claims a 100 percent reduction in on-site water use.
The engineering achievement is genuine. Existing data centers consume enormous amounts of water for cooling, a single large facility can use millions of gallons daily. Closed-loop warm-water cooling removes that draw entirely for facilities built around the design.
But the innovation only addresses on-site consumption, which accounts for roughly a quarter to a third of a data center’s total water footprint. The larger share comes from off-site water use in electricity generation. Fossil fuel power plants consume approximately 2.7 billion gallons (10.2 billion liters) of water per day in the United States alone according to the US Geological Survey, and the International Energy Agency projects that natural gas and coal will provide more than 40 percent of new electricity for data centers through 2030.
Chip manufacturing adds further off-site water demand that can double or triple the total footprint of a facility, according to academic studies.
Nvidia’s system addresses the water consumed inside the data center walls, and does so effectively. The remaining challenge is bigger than any single cooling design can solve: powering AI infrastructure with energy sources that do not themselves consume large volumes of water.
Sources: Nvidia wants to cut data center water use, but that’s not the same as fixing AI’s water problem (TechCrunch, June 22, 2026); Nvidia Says a New AI Cooling System Addresses Data Center Water Concerns (IBTimes, June 22, 2026)