Data Centers
Build resilient cooling systems with an integrated water partner
As AI drives larger rack densities and higher thermal loads, data center growth increasingly depends on the cooling systems and water infrastructure that support reliable operation at scale. Operators are moving beyond traditional air cooling toward more advanced architectures, including liquid cooling, hybrid cooling, and direct-to-chip cooling, while also facing growing pressure to secure resilient water systems, protect uptime, improve efficiency, and demonstrate responsible stewardship in the communities where they build and expand.
Xylem helps data center owners, developers, designers, and operators address both sides of that challenge: the cooling-loop and hydronic infrastructure inside the facility, and the broader water strategy around the site. That includes moving, treating, measuring, managing, monitoring, reusing, and planning water systems, while also supporting pumps, heat exchangers, fluid handling, and related infrastructure used in liquid-cooled and hydronic systems and loops that may use glycol rather than water. The result is a more integrated approach to cooling performance, resilience, permitting, efficiency, and long-term growth.
Why water strategy matters for data centers
Data center growth now depends on more than compute, land, and power. Operators must answer a broader infrastructure question: how do they scale AI capacity with cooling systems that can handle rising thermal demands without intensifying pressure on local water systems, while still meeting expectations for uptime, efficiency, and community resilience?
That is why leading organizations are starting to treat water and cooling infrastructure with the same discipline they apply to power and connectivity. Cooling-loop performance affects uptime, operational stability, and energy efficiency. Water strategy affects siting, permitting, source resilience, long-term scalability, and how communities view expansion.
The shift from air cooling toward liquid and hybrid cooling makes this even more important. This is not simply a change in thermal management. It is a broader infrastructure redesign in which cooling loops, hydronic systems, water quality, treatment, and fluid management must be planned alongside compute, power, and facility architecture from the outset.
A strategic water and cooling approach often includes four shifts
- Redesign: Plan cooling loops, water systems, and fluid infrastructure as a core part of facility design, not an afterthought.
- Reuse: Recover and recirculate water where possible to reduce dependence on fresh supply while supporting cooling performance and resilience.
- Relationships: Coordinate with utilities, municipalities, and local stakeholders early to align data center growth and cooling demand with community water realities.
- Replenish: Support longer-term water resilience so AI growth, cooling capacity, and community water security can advance together.
How Xylem helps
Xylem brings together expertise across cooling-loop infrastructure, water movement, treatment, sensing, reuse, and system intelligence in a single integrated approach, with support from design and commissioning through ongoing operation.
What makes Xylem different
Many providers address one piece of the challenge. Xylem helps connect the whole picture.
One partner for cooling loops and the full water cycle
We support data centers across cooling-loop infrastructure, sourcing, intake, treatment, transport, monitoring, reuse, discharge, and broader water planning. That means customers can work with a partner that understands both the cooling loop itself and the wider water infrastructure around it source, source, source.
Integrated system thinking
Our approach is designed around how cooling systems, water systems, and facility operations work together, not as isolated product categories. That helps customers manage tradeoffs across uptime, efficiency, resilience, and stewardship source.
Support from design through operation
Xylem’s role can begin early in design and commissioning and continue into ongoing operation, helping customers make cooling and water strategy actionable across the asset lifecycle source.
Built for the next phase of data center cooling
As liquid and hybrid cooling drive broader infrastructure redesign, Xylem helps customers plan cooling loops, hydronic systems, and water infrastructure alongside compute, power, and facility architecture from the start source.
Grounded in local realities
We help customers address the practical pressures shaping expansion today, including sustainability expectations, regulatory requirements, resource availability, and community acceptance.
Case studies
No margin for downtime: Redundant cooling water treatment for a hyperscale data center
Learn how Xylem delivered redundant cooling water treatment for a Virginia hyperscale campus — supporting uptime, environmental compliance, and fast deployment.
High performance data center reduces cooling risk with phased water treatment strategy
Explore how Xylem helped a high performance data center reduce cooling risk and enable rapid startup with a phased water treatment strategy and permanent solution.
FAQs for data center customers
Direct-to-chip cooling is a liquid cooling approach that removes heat close to the processor rather than relying only on traditional air cooling. As AI workloads increase thermal density, data centers are adopting more advanced cooling architectures, including direct-to-chip and other liquid or hybrid cooling approaches, which require well-designed fluid and water infrastructure.
Liquid cooling systems are used to manage higher thermal loads in modern data centers, especially as AI drives denser compute environments. These systems rely on cooling loops, hydronic infrastructure, fluid handling, and related treatment and monitoring capabilities that must be planned alongside the broader facility design.
Data center cooling loops can include pumps, motors, heat exchangers, tanks, valves, accessories, and other applied water and hydronic infrastructure used to move and manage fluids throughout the cooling system. Xylem also works with cooling OEMs and project stakeholders to support design, installation, and operation.
Water quality can directly affect cooling reliability, maintenance requirements, and long-term system performance. Treatment, filtration, loop quality management, and monitoring help support heat-transfer performance, system condition, and operational continuity across cooling environments.
Data centers can reduce water use by combining more efficient cooling architectures with reuse, recovery, recirculation, and broader water planning. The source material notes that closed-loop liquid cooling can reduce water use by 80–90%, and that the sector could become 46% more water-efficient by 2050, with potential savings of 2.4 trillion liters annually.
Monitoring helps operators measure flow, pressure, level, temperature-related performance, and water quality so they can identify issues earlier and improve system decision-making over time. Xylem supports this through sensing, analytics, Xylem Vue, and integration with BMS and DCIM environments.
Yes. Xylem supports the cooling-loop and hydronic infrastructure inside the facility while also helping customers address sourcing, treatment, transport, measurement, monitoring, reuse, discharge, and long-term planning across the broader site and community water context.
Because the shift to liquid and hybrid cooling is part of a wider infrastructure redesign. Cooling loops, water systems, and fluid infrastructure should be planned alongside compute, power, and overall facility architecture from the outset to support better performance, resilience, and long-term scalability.