Liquid Cooling Becoming Essential As AI Servers Proliferate
Networkworld, Monday, May 19th, 2025
High-density computing workloads like AI training and inference run too hot for traditional air cooling. Companies are increasingly adopting liquid cooling technologies, even in traditional air-cooled data centers.
Average power densities-the energy consumption of servers in data center racks-have more than doubled over the past two years, from 8 kilowatts to 17 kilowatts per rack. And they're expected to rise to as much as 30 kilowatts by 2027 as AI workloads increase.
That's just the average. Individual racks can go much higher. Servers used to train AI models can consume more than 80 kilowatts per rack, and Nvidia's latest GB200 chip, combined with its servers, can require densities of up to 120 kilowatts, according to data from McKinsey.