Nvidia claims that its Rubin generation reference design for a fully liquid-cooled data center has "eliminated massive amounts of power usage and pretty much all water usage." The company says that by switching to 100 percent liquid cooling and running servers hotter, the design can cut data center water use to "near zero."
The efficiency gains are partly due to running AI servers at temperatures as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 degrees Celsius). According to Nvidia head of sustainability Josh Parker, the reference design takes water use "from roughly 2.6 million gallons per megawatt per year for conventional cooling-tower-based systems to near zero — up to a 100 percent reduction." With the system, heat is captured directly at the chip and transported through liquid loops operating at higher temperatures, allowing outdoor dry coolers to reject heat efficiently for much of the year.
Nvidia's blog post also claims that "every cloud provider and data center operator building for [Rubin] is making the transition," though it does not address the cost of building this style of data center versus one using less efficient air cooling. The design also does not address all concerns around AI data centers, including the environmental impact of their construction and the power generation requirements of the facilities. Amazon has similarly touted higher heat tolerances as part of making its mostly air-cooled data centers more efficient.