Average power densities—the energy consumption of servers in data center racks—have more than doubled over the past two years, from 8 kilowatts to 17 kilowatts per rack. And they’re expected to rise to as much as 30 kilowatts by 2027 as AI workloads increase.
That’s just the average. Individual racks can go much higher. Servers used to train AI models can consume more than 80 kilowatts per rack, and Nvidia’s latest GB200 chip, combined with its servers, can require densities of up to 120 kilowatts, according to data from McKinsey.
Most data centers operators say that once rack power density is over 20 kilowatts, air is no longer sufficient to cool them down. As of early 2024, 22% of data center operators were already using direct liquid cooling technology, the Uptime Institute’s cooling system survey shows.