Behind the artificial intelligence boom of the last few years lies an under-the-radar battle, data centers racing to keep up with unprecedented power consumption.
The issue is clear, GPUs powering AI breakthroughs require massive amounts of energy and produce significant heat.
Take Nvidia's GB200 NVL72, which contains 72 GB200 GPUs and 36 Grace CPUs but was forced to undergo a rack redesign after claims of overheating in the original configuration.
At the same time, global energy consumption by data centers continues to climb, accounting for 1.5 percent of total electricity use worldwide. By 2030, it’s projected that US data centers alone will consume around 8 percent of the country’s total power and require up to $50 billion in utility investments.
This escalating demand raises an important question: Can our infrastructure and resources keep up? Companies like Microsoft are exploring bold alternatives, such as leveraging nuclear reactors. Still, despite many innovative approaches, the power grid is struggling to meet the ever-growing demand for data centers, and ambitious projects are seeing long delays and high-cost overruns.
Challenges faced by AI-driven data centers
As AI workloads grow, so do the challenges facing data centers. Energy demands are rising, and competition for critical components like high-performance GPUs is intensifying, making supply chains risky. Land scarcity, particularly in regions with limited access to power and space for infrastructure, further complicates efforts.
Simultaneously, the cyclical nature of AI training oscillates between compute and memory-intensive tasks to generate fluctuating thermal stresses that traditional cooling methods can no longer manage. As a result, cutting-edge solutions like liquid cooling and innovative thermal interface materials (TIMs), used to keep all cooling solutions in functional contact, are no longer an option. They are essential.
Companies then face the difficult task of quickly deploying new cooling technologies at scale while managing operational costs. However, these upgrades can have an environmental impact, with cooling systems consuming millions of gallons of water daily, an issue made more urgent by global water scarcity.
To address these interconnected challenges, data centers must balance scalability with sustainability, ensuring reliable performance for engineers and enterprises delivered on budget and time while reducing their environmental footprint.
Innovative cooling solutions
Adopting innovative, scalable cooling solutions that integrate seamlessly into data centers is the key to overcoming these challenges.
Traditional all-liquid thermal interfaces remain a hurdle, as they often fail to deliver the required reliability and performance. In response, emerging solutions such as closed-loop liquid cooling systems are gaining traction, promising to reduce water consumption while enhancing thermal margin for system cooling to overcome increased interface temperatures due to large, curved chips.
Alternatively, companies like Meta have achieved a fleet-wide power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.10 compared to the industry average of 1.58 by using advanced cooling techniques such as drawing in outside air for temperature regulation, evaporative cooling, and humidification systems. However, as chip power densities rise and ideal climates for outside air cooling become less accessible, maintaining such levels of efficiency will pose growing challenges.
We know reliable high-performance cooling starts at the interface, and advanced TIMs are replacing traditional options to meet the demands of next-generation cooling systems at scale today. Carbon-based TIMs, for instance, are rapidly gaining favor for their superior thermal conductivity and durability and ability to connect flat co-plates to curved chips and maintain contact in the full device operational range. These innovations ensure operational continuity, improve efficiency, and reduce environmental impact.
Why sustainable cooling matters
Sustainable cooling solutions provide many advantages, including extending hardware lifespan, lowering maintenance expenses, and preventing loss of revenue due to prolonged downtime. GPUs, typically given a three-five-year lifespan under heavy workloads, can increase their lifespan by more than 60 percent with proper cooling.
Additionally, since heat accounts for nearly half of all failures, effective cooling can cut maintenance needs by up to 50 percent. Data centers rely on modular and reliable cooling systems to achieve near-perfect uptime (99.995 percent or higher). Even short interruptions can result in significant losses in high-stakes industries like finance or healthcare.
From an environmental perspective, sustainable technologies help lower carbon footprints by minimizing energy use for cooling. Heat reuse systems, which capture and repurpose waste heat from data centers, such as facilities that use this heat to warm nearby buildings, further enhance sustainability efforts. These initiatives are aligned with broader sustainability goals, helping to lower carbon footprints and contribute to energy conservation.
Sustainable cooling solutions are transforming the future of data centers by enhancing heat transfer and withstanding the mechanical stresses of modern chips. These innovations ensure consistent performance, extend the longevity of critical components, and help prevent costly downtime or data loss.
The future of sustainable cooling
The evolution of cooling innovations has come with unexpected challenges. Still, the lessons learned in balancing performance with sustainability are invaluable for those navigating the same high-stakes demands of AI-driven infrastructure.
Over the next five to ten years, thermal management solutions using carbon-based materials will withstand the increasing power densities of GPUs and maintain performance, superior thermal conductivity, and durability.
However, the manufacturing of these materials must also be sustainable and scalable to avoid the supply chain challenges seen with using graphite in batteries. Data centers must also adapt by incorporating microgrids and localized renewable energy sources such as nuclear, hydro, and solar power. Transparency in partnerships and stakeholder engagement will ensure these solutions' scalability and long-term sustainability.
As AI continues to shape the future, the data center industry must meet the challenge of balancing power and thermal demands, all without compromising their bottom line or the planet’s resources. The journey toward a greener, more efficient future is just beginning, and the decisions made today will define the infrastructure of tomorrow.
