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On-demand: Cooling the Cloud – water, efficiency and the hidden constraint of competitiveness

As AI-driven workloads push rack densities past the limits of conventional air cooling, data centre operators face a resource question that has stayed largely out of view: water.

Emerging research modelling water usage effectiveness (WUE) across 41 African countries shows that onsite water consumption for cooling is often higher in Africa’s hot, dry climates than global averages, even before accounting for water lost to ageing municipal infrastructure, where African leakage rates average 46% against a global figure of 39%.

South Africa illustrates the paradox well. Leading local operators have shifted to closed-loop, air-cooled chiller systems that report a water usage effectiveness close to zero, avoiding the evaporative cooling that made older facilities heavy municipal water users.

Yet this shift to “dry” cooling trades one resource pressure for another.

Air-cooled systems demand significantly more energy, at a time when the next generation of high-density, H200-class chips is pushing many operators back toward liquid cooling to manage heat loads that air alone cannot handle economically.

This webinar unpacks that trade-off. It examines the true, often-hidden water footprint of African data centres, onsite and offsite, the innovations (closed-loop, dry cooling, hybrid and liquid systems) being deployed to manage it, and the growing use of non-potable and recycled water in high-performance facilities.

It closes on the commercial stakes: how water intensity is increasingly scrutinised by financiers and ESG frameworks, and what it takes to design for water-stressed environments without compromising uptime.

Discussion points of water efficiency at African data centres webinar

• The true water footprint of data centres in African markets, onsite cooling consumption versus offsite water embedded in power generation, and what recent WUE modelling across African countries reveals

• Cooling innovation: closed-loop, dry cooling and hybrid systems, how South African operators have driven WUE close to zero, and the energy trade-offs this creates

• The liquid cooling shift: deploying the next wave of liquid cooling for H200-class chips, rising rack density, and the vendor partnerships enabling it

• Using non-potable and recycled water in high-performance facilities as a route to water-neutral design

• ESG scrutiny: how water intensity is factoring into financing decisions and investor due diligence

• Designing for water-stressed environments without compromising uptime, practical strategies for water-scarce regions

WATCH: Cooling the Cloud webinar