Data Center Power and Cooling Trends for the AI Era
Many data centers struggle to get enough power into the facility to run AI applications. Those that manage it face an enormous cooling problem — how exactly do you dissipate that much heat? Hence, both of these areas are front and center in data center planning and design. Analyst firm Omdia recently delved into the trends shaping both areas in a report on AI data centers. “Under the dual pressures of soaring power densities and gigawatt-scale expansion, 2026 will see data center power and cooling systems fundamentally redesigned to bridge the gap to gigawatt campuses,” said Omdia analyst Shen Wang in the report. With this in mind, I’ve outlined some of the top trends impacting AI data center power and cooling. 1. Liquid cooling becomes the AI standard Nvidia’s Rubin platform is designed with 100% liquid cooling in mind. The company is eliminating all fans and expanding liquid coverage to every key component. The pipes and cold plates needed for liquid cooling are being extended from GPUs to CPUs, switches, and even the optical modules used in networking. This full-stack approach …








