AI boom pushes tech giants to cut data centres’ thirst for water
- ID
- 22089
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 07 Sep 2026, 9:00 PM
- Fetched
- 07 Sep 2026, 9:48 PM
- Provider
- Malay Mail Tech
- Category
- malaysia-tech
- Original URL
- https://www.malaymail.com/news/tech-gadgets/2026/09/07/ai-boom-pushes-tech-giants-to-cut-data-centres-thirst-for-water/234252
- Source URL
- https://www.malaymail.com/feed/rss/tech-gadgets
Summary
- Score
- 5.5
- Created
- 07 Sep 2026, 9:49 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersai_ml_learnerssaas_startup_founders
What happened
Data centres consumed 222 billion litres of water worldwide for cooling in 2025 (Rystad Energy). Nvidia has developed a cooling method that allows warmer water into servers, reducing the need for cooled air, while Microsoft, AWS, and Meta use closed-loop systems with varying results.
Why it matters
For builders deploying AI workloads on cloud infrastructure, cooling efficiency increasingly affects where capacity is sited and how costs scale. Malaysian operators and colocation customers should factor water and power constraints into infrastructure decisions, especially as Johor's data centre buildout faces scrutiny over resource use.
Discussion angle
How do water and power constraints in Southeast Asia shape where Malaysian startups should host AI workloads, and does Nvidia's warmer-water cooling approach change the calculus for local colocation?