Reimagining the future of data center design

We are on the brink of change, driven by an industry still so new and exciting that it’s taking shape and being defined almost in real time. As of March, there were a reported 5,426 data centers in the U.S., a number that is only growing every day. What’s more, the need for data centers is expected to increase by 9% each year until at least 2030, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

With artificial intelligence dominating almost every business, it’s increasingly clear how closely it’s tied to the growing strain on infrastructure, especially as it involves data centers. While the advent of AI means improved efficiency and optimized decision-making across many applications and industries, it simultaneously means an increase in data center power consumption to accommodate such rapid growth.

For instance, AI is expected to drive a 165% increase in data center power demand by 2030, and a required 68 gigawatts of power globally by 2027.

For context, this is nearly the power capacity of the state of California or the equivalent of 68 nuclear power plants, while 1 gigawatt is the equivalent of 100 million LED light bulbs or around 876,000 homes.

While the course of data centers is still taking shape, the focus in the immediate future is on solutions that empower designers and engineers to be good stewards of responsible and future-proofed data center operations.

Just as today’s decarbonization efforts present an opportunity to reimagine today’s  solutions, so too do data centers present an opportunity to reimagine the future of energy, water and grid consumption, as well as the technologies it will take to get there. Efficiency as we know it—energy efficiency, water efficiency and resource efficiency—will be a critical component in these efforts.

The history, and modern-day reality, of data centers

Data centers have come a long way. Once spread out, data centers are now clustering due to energy costs, real estate limits and strategic drivers like environmental innovation and economic incentives that require new partnerships and broader collaboration.

Historically air cooled, early data centers could manage heat dissipation from servers in a fixed way. Now, increasingly intense loads of power from sources like AI and high-performance computing require  more  complex systems, with today’s data centers relying on a matrix of fans, chillers and multilayered cooling solutions.

More power means an increased need for water to cool the servers in data centers that power AI models. The concern over how to proceed efficiently with water is echoed in the design community, with many citing water and energy efficiency as the biggest challenge faced in optimizing data center operations.

Considerations for data center design

At first glance, mixing fluids and high-powered electronics may sound like a recipe for disaster, but the story is more nuanced than that. When designed intentionally and holistically—paired with other technologies like digital monitoring tools and water treatment systems—liquid cooling is poised to solve one of the biggest challenges in data centers today: heat, while also addressing the implications that data centers pose, like water usage.

Opportunities for data centers

About 30% of new data centers are being built with liquid cooling systems, with that percentage expected to hit 50% within two to three years. Other data centers are transitioning to a hybrid cooling approach, with 75% water cooling and  25% air cooling. With the right tools and equipment, these approaches present an opportunity to drive smarter cooling, thermal management and regional water utilization strategies.

Embracing these opportunities, though, will require some out-of-the-box thinking on the part of specifying engineers, contractors and facility managers.

Seizing the cool to manage the heat

Hydronics have long been touted for their efficiency benefits, but as data centers increasingly use power supply and put strain on water resources, hydronics as just one liquid cooling strategy are yet again dominating the conversation.

One might even argue that they never, in fact, left said conversation.

As part of this concept of building on existing toolkits, thermal management is increasingly of note.

Liquid cooling not only presents a more efficient way to handle heat load, but heat from the server rack can be captured and reused in a facility, contributing to lower overall operating costs and energy reduction for the HVAC system.

Capturing waste heat from data centers to provide heat for other buildings or processes could be a gamechanger in the data center landscape.

Finding creative ways to maximize sustainability and efficiency

While the impetus for the construction of data centers stems from power- hungry operational loads like AI, their evolution will ultimately come down to community engagement and buy-in. If data centers are at the cornerstone  of our digital world, then communities are at the epicenter of its design and will play a pivotal role in providing the infrastructure, capacity and additional facilities to meet this rapid growth. Keeping community goals in mind like being good global citizens, while juggling concerns like power, water and land usage, requires the adoption of creative solutions.

Collaboration with stakeholders

The planning and maintenance of data centers is complex, requiring working with the stakeholders and utilities that will bear the responsibility for managing them.

Maximizing sustainability within data centers will require collaboration from all stakeholders involved in data center design and operation, as well as alignment with the communities where they may be housed. Utilities increasingly represent an important aspect of this and identifying ways to creatively capitalize on existing infrastructure with water cooling technologies will be instrumental in this.

For example, the right pumps are one thing but addressing a data center’s entire life cycle is another entirely, requiring a strategic mix of solutions to address each aspect of data center management.

At the intersection of collaboration and next-gen technologies, Xylem Innovation Labs works to fast-track emerging solutions through offerings like its incubator and accelerator programs—all with the goal of tackling the world’s biggest water challenges. According to Xylem’s 2024 Sustainability Report, strategies such as circular water resource management are instrumental to solution design, meaning embedding circular principles throughout a solution’s life cycle. In the context of data centers, this means holistic management of equipment and resources.

Embedding efficiency across all aspects

Equally important is qualifying efficiency. As the primary water metric to which data centers measure themselves against, water usage effectiveness (WUE) divides total annual water consumption for humidification and cooling by the total energy consumption for IT equipment, and meeting it is requiring pushing data centers to think outside the box. Microsoft, for instance, is employing chip-level cooling systems whereby the water will circulate among systems in a closed loop and be reused to cool systems, while some data centers are finding ways to avoid energy penalties, such as running maintenance schedules during cooler times of day or using evaporative cooling systems.

“Xylem is in a unique position because  we can manage the whole cycle. Not only can we support the cooling requirements for data centers, we can also provide the expertise of Bell & Gossett representatives and the right Xylem solutions.”

Regional and site-specific considerations

With the massive appetite for data centers comes the increasing need to construct them closer to communities to accommodate this demand. This shift not only raises important considerations around energy consumption but also presents new opportunities, such as leveraging alternative water sources for cooling strategies.

For instance, the past few months have seen soaring growth across four communities in Wisconsin alone, with individual projects anticipated to occupy upwards of 1,000 acres and use energy loads equivalent to the city of Milwaukee (a population of almost 570,000). One developer in Dane County, Wisconsin, is employing cooling methods that reduce the amount of water used. Depending on what the customer needs, this could mean a system requiring no water with a refrigerant, or a “closed-loop” system that requires a one-time input of water that is then recycled. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C.’s municipal water supply is maxed out, pushing data centers toward developing independent water sourcing and recycling strategies.

And at the epicenter of data center infrastructure is northern Virginia, home to about half of all data centers in the U.S., which is already seeing the environmental strain that data centers pose. As facilities scale in this region, it’s intensifying water use in the Potomac River basin, with data centers currently consuming about 2% of the basin’s water that approximately 6.9 million people rely on.

In the desert and coastal regions where cooling is pushed to its limit, engineers must design around extreme conditions and water scarcity is becoming even more of a focal point. Many data centers directly consume water to facilitate heat removal that is generated from IT equipment, with a single data center projected to consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day. Meanwhile, a federal report estimated that the indirect water consumption footprint (from electricity use) of data centers in the United States wasroughly 211 billion gallons in 2023.

Whether it’s battling humidity and air quality in Texas or water scarcity in California, building a new data center from the ground up or upgrading existing facilities, the data center community is increasingly faced with the moving target that is balancing climate change with efficiency. That’s why a holistic approach is essential— one that accounts for the entire cooling ecosystem and how each component can adapt to meet evolving performance targets.