Microsoft says its new data centres won’t need water

In an effort to reduce its environmental impact, Microsoft says it’s developed a new data centre design that won’t require water for cooling.

Why it matters: The boom in data centre installations, fuelled by the rise of artificial intelligence, could exacerbate climate change by prolonging our reliance on polluting sources of energy and sucking up valuable water resources.

Data centres require enormous volumes of water to cool their chips and servers, meaning more efficient designs are needed as global demand for computing power surges.

The latest: Microsoft’s new design will avoid the need for 125 million litres of water per year, per data centre, the company says. It relies on a closed-loop system, whereby an initial allocation of water is continually circulated between the servers and chillers to dissipate heat, meaning no fresh water is required.

“As water challenges grow more extreme, we know we have more work to do,” says Steve Solomon, vice president of data centre infrastructure engineering at Microsoft. “The shift to the next generation data centres is expected to help reduce our water usage effectiveness to near zero for each data centre employing zero-water evaporation.”

All new Microsoft data centre designs will employ this cooling technology, and the first sites using it will come online in late 2027, the company says.

Water will still be needed for administrative purposes like restrooms and kitchens, it added.