Microsoft has shared new details surrounding its development of next-generation data centre cooling designs, which the tech giant claims uses water saving technology.

In a new blog post, Microsoft VP for data centre infrastructure engineering, Steve Solomon, said that the new blueprints would avoid the loss of more than 125 million litres of water per year for every data centre.

According to Solomon, the design for the new cooling tech was launched back in August this year, with chip-level solutions introduced that can deliver precise temperature controls without any water evaporation.

Instead, Microsoft claims that the liquid cooling technology it has developed uses recycled water in a closed loop, with one system filled during construction of the data centre that continually recirculates water between servers and chillers to dissipate the build up of heat, without requiring any fresh water supply.

By replacing traditional evaporation cooling systems with mechanical cooling, Microsoft hopes to increase its power usage effectiveness levels, with the new chip-cooling solution part of a plan to utilise warmer temperatures than previous generations of hardware would allow.

Although this results in a ‘nominal increase’ in energy usage, the tech firm expects that future innovations will continue to reduce power demands.

Solomon said that, through measurements of Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE), the last fiscal year showed Microsoft gaining a 39% improvement in water use of the last fiscal year, compared to 2021, down to the firm’s ongoing efforts to reduce water wastage, expand operating temperature ranges, and the auditing of data center operations.

“As water challenges grow more extreme, we know we have more work to do,” wrote Solomon.

“The shift to the next generation data centres is expected to help reduce our WUE to near zero for each data centre employing zero-water evaporation. As our fleet expands over time, this shift will help reduce Microsoft’s fleetwide WUE even further.”

Solomon confirmed that the new zero-evaporation systems will be piloted at two new US data centre projects in 2026, coming online in 2027, with the current fleet continuing to use a mix of air-cooled and water-cooled systems. 

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Microsoft’s plans come amid rising concerns about the environmental impact of data centres, particularly in regard to the increasing power consumption associated with growing AI use.

Recent data suggests that 54% of UK adults who know about genAI are aware that the expansion of the technology could be harmful to the environment, with Morgan Stanley research indicating that the power demand of genAI will increase by around 70% every year until 2027.

According to tech sector consultants, Gartner Inc, 40% of existing AI data centres will be operationally constrained by power availability by then, with estimates that the power required for data centres to run AI-optimised servers will reach 500 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year.

Those in the industry are also growing more concerned, with a new study from DLA Piper finding that nearly all senior executives in the data centre industry are concerned about the availability and reliability of power supplies.