Microsoft launched a new data center design that helps optimize AI workloads while consuming no water for cooling. This chip-level cooling solution can deliver precise temperature control without necessitating water evaporation, thus avoiding the need for more than 125 million liters of water per year, per data center.
“We are continually investing in improving the design and operation of our data centers to minimize water use,” noted the company in a recent blog. “In our last fiscal year, our data centers operated with an average WUE of 0.30 L/kWh. This represents a 39 percent improvement compared to 2021, when we reported a global average of 0.49 L/kWh. This WUE reduction is due to our ongoing efforts to actively reduce water wastage, expand our operating temperature range and audit our data center operations.”
Traditionally, water has been evaporated on-site to reduce the power demand of cooling systems. Replacing evaporative systems with mechanical cooling is expected to increase power usage effectiveness (PUE), while chip-level cooling solutions helps to utilize warmer temperatures for cooling than previous generations of IT hardware, thus allowing Microsoft to mitigate power use with high efficiency economizing chillers, with elevated water temperatures.
The result is a nominal increase in our annual energy use, compared to evaporative data center designs across the global fleet. Additional innovations – to provide more targeted cooling – are in development and are expected to continue to reduce power consumption.
New projects in Phoenix, AZ and Mt. Pleasant, WI, will pilot zero-water evaporated designs in 2026. As of August 2024, new Microsoft data center designs began using this next-gen cooling technology as it works to make zero-water evaporation the primary cooling method across its portfolio. The new sites will begin coming online in late 2027.
