Liquid Cooling Enables Future Generative AI Infrastructure

AI infrastructure is consuming power at an ever-increasing rate, which is pushing data centers to the limit in terms of power capacity. For decades, many traditional data centers have used air conditioning — delivered through forced air — to cool data centers. But physics dictates that air alone is only so good at absorbing the massive amount of heat generated by data center power demands. 

The good news? In terms of thermal conductivity, water is 20 times more efficient than air at absorbing heat.  

So it should be no surprise that the new Gartner® research relays that “the pace of innovation in liquid cooling to support new AI data centers presents a steep learning curve and a massive opportunity”.1 And the pace is indeed accelerating – according to Gartner, “By 2030, 90% of new data centers will deploy liquid cooling, up from less than 25% today.”¹ 

Read report to learn more about the benefits of the different types of liquid cooling.  

AHEAD thinks the research is clear: liquid cooling is critical to the future of AI. That’s why we recently invested in a 10MW liquid-cooled rack integration facility, dedicated to direct-to-chip, single phase liquid cooling, which we believe will meet evolving demands of high-performance computing, now and in the future.  

¹SOURCE: Gartner, Emerging Tech Radar, Liquid Cooling Enables Future Generative AI Infrastructure, 3 April 2025 

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Gartner, Emerging Tech Radar, Liquid Cooling Enables Future Generative AI Infrastructure, 3 April 2025 

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