Nvidia’s Rubin-era data center design cuts water use to near zero with full liquid cooling

Nvidia’s Rubin-generation reference design for AI data centers replaces conventional cooling towers with 100% liquid cooling, aiming to reduce water use to near zero. The company says the design eliminates massive amounts of power usage and “pretty much all water usage” compared with traditional systems.

The efficiency gains stem partly from running AI servers hotter, up to 45°C (113°F). In this setup, heat is captured directly at the chip and transported through liquid loops operating at higher temperatures, enabling outdoor dry coolers to reject heat efficiently for much of the year.

According to Nvidia’s head of sustainability, Josh Parker, the reference design reduces water consumption from roughly 2.6 million gallons per megawatt per year for conventional cooling-tower-based systems to near zero, representing up to a 100% reduction.

The company claims that every cloud provider and data center operator building for Rubin is making the transition, though it does not detail the cost of constructing such facilities compared with less efficient air-cooled designs.