Nvidia's new cooling saves 100% facility water but ignores the power plant problem
nvidia's warm-water cooling recirculates liquid to cut on-site water use by 100%, though electricity generation for those data centers still consumes billions of gallons daily.
nvidia announced a closed-loop warm-water cooling system that pumps coolant at 45˚ c to eliminate on-site water consumption by 100%, solving the facility-level cooling challenge without fans or chillers. however, the company does not count the water consumed externally by power plants, which fossil fuel facilities use to generate the massive electricity required for ai compute—fossil fuel plants use 1.17 to 2.2 liters per kilowatt-hour while renewables use only 0.01 to 0.03 liters. as natural gas and coal are projected to power over 40% of new data center electricity through 2030, nvidia's solution addresses roughly 25% to 33% of the total water problem.