Data center water consumption is a myth, says engineer: modern builds use closed-circuit cooling
GlenBradley · x · 2026-09-03
GlenBradley argues the vast majority of data centers don't use liquid cooling—only the top 1% largest hyperscalers do. Facilities built in the last 5–8 years use closed-circuit hydraulic cooling, and building permits from 2026 onward will require it. He calls the data center water-consumption narrative a myth and vents about failing to convince laypeople online. Same content also posted as a quote of Sam Altman's water remarks.
More from Infra
- Reply reiterating: data centers are good for America's construction workers — saranormous · 2026-09-03
- Should LLM tokens carry green data-center validation labels, like Fair Trade? — jdavid · 2026-09-03
- Commentary: American construction workers want data centers, not just the grey curve — saranormous · 2026-09-03
- Six load forecasters benchmarked on GPU-hours: none beat the last-value baseline — Vegetable-Top-3670 · 2026-09-03
- Visited a 240MW AI data center in Richmond, VA — surprisingly quiet, no high-pitch noise — AndyMasley · 2026-09-03
- Carmack revives rotovators: spinning tethers could slash the cost of space-based data centers — ID_AA_Carmack · 2026-09-03