Google and Microsoft were hit by the environmental community because their data centers used large amounts of water for cooling systems, which had an impact on local residents. It is an issue that has also been raised in Malaysia after several data centers were announced in our country this year. This morning Microsoft showed off the design of their latest data center which no longer requires a continuous supply of water to be cooled.
According to the design of this new data center, the supply of clean water is only needed for the kitchen and staff toilets only. According to Microsoft, this also saves the use of up to 125 million liters of water a year needed by their control data center. This system still uses water for cooling but in a closed cycle.
Water will be circulated continuously without the data center requiring a round-the-clock supply of clean water. Furthermore, cooling at the chip level has also been improved to allow data centers to be cooled using water at higher temperatures. The first two data centers with the new system will be built in Phoenix, Arizona, and Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin with it set to be operational by 2026.
Other data centers will start switching to this system gradually starting in 2027. With this, Microsoft said that all of its data center cooling systems will no longer use water cooling. Last month Microsoft unveiled a data center design built using cross-laminated timber (CLT) that reduces their carbon footprint.