40% of electricity consumption in data centers is attributable to cooling
Cooling is not an accessory of the data center, but a primary energy balance system. According to the United States Department of Energy, up to 40% of the total electricity consumption of a data center is dedicated to heat management generated by high-density servers. This percentage is not an average value, but a technical threshold that marks the transition from a computing system to an active thermal system. The data was collected from projects funded by the DOE in 2023, which invested $40 million to develop resilient cooling solutions. The problem is not the amount of energy consumed, but its distribution: cooling cannot be isolated from the primary electrical flow, since the heat produced is an inevitable thermodynamic residue of the conversion of electricity into computational work.
This 40% ratio is not a design figure, but a system indicator. When cooling consumes such a high proportion of energy, the data center transforms from a processing center into a thermal dissipation station. The electrical flow is no longer just input for calculation, but a resource for heat management. The transition is evident in high-density data centers, where servers operate at 80°C or more, requiring active cooling systems to maintain operating temperatures below 30°C. The thermal capacity of the system becomes a physical constraint, not a secondary design issue.
The exponential growth of computing power consumption will outpace any other commercial application
According to projections from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in its Annual Energy Outlook 2025, electricity consumption for computing in the commercial sector will grow from 8% of the total in 2024 to 20% by 2050. This increase will exceed any other consumption category in the sector, including heating, ventilation, and lighting. This data is not a hypothesis, but a direct consequence of the growth of high-density computing architectures, particularly those used for artificial intelligence. Computing is no longer a service, but a basic infrastructure, and its energy consumption has grown faster than any other sector in the past decade.
The growth in computing power consumption is not linear. From 2019 to 2025, computing power consumption increased by 23% in a single year, peaking in 2024. This increase was driven by a combination of factors: the expansion of data networks, the increase in server density, and the adoption of artificial intelligence systems trained on large datasets. Computing power consumption has surpassed that of building heating, which indicates a paradigm shift in how energy is conceived in complex systems. Cooling is no longer an additional cost, but an activity integrated into the system’s energy cycle.
The solution lies in reconfiguring the thermal flow, not in increasing capacity
The case of Alfa Laval, with its passive cooling project based on high-efficiency heat exchangers, shows how a single technological change can reduce energy consumption for cooling by 35% in a medium-sized data center. The approach is based on the use of thermal fluids with high specific heat capacity and a design optimized for heat transfer. The system operates in passive mode for 60% of the time, using ambient heat to cool the servers without resorting to compressors. This solution is not a novelty, but a re-adaptation of existing technologies to a new energy demand context.
The success of the project is measurable in terms of thermal efficiency: the system’s coefficient of performance (COP) increased from 2.8 to 4.1. This increase is not due to an improvement in compressor technology, but to a reconfiguration of the thermal flow. The heat generated by the servers is transferred directly to the external environment through an active heat exchange system, reducing the need for mechanical cooling. The implementation cost is approximately $1.2 million for a 50 MW data center, but the return on investment is less than three years, thanks to the annual energy savings of 14 GWh.
The Real Trade-off: The Distribution of Infrastructure Costs Between Countries and Operators
The cost of cooling is not evenly distributed. Data centers in regions with cold climates, such as Sweden or Finland, can leverage natural cooling for up to 70% of the time, reducing the electrical consumption for cooling to less than 15%. In contrast, those in hot climates, such as Texas or Southeast Asia, must invest in more expensive mechanical systems and consume over 50% of their energy for cooling. This disparity creates a structural competitive advantage for countries with favorable climatic conditions, which can offer cloud services at lower costs.
The change is not only technical, but geopolitical. Those who control the thermal cooling nodes – the heat exchange systems, the thermal fluids, the passive cooling networks – hold a growing logistical power. The cost of cooling is no longer an indicator of efficiency, but a factor of strategic positioning. The real trade-off is between those who pay for the infrastructure costs and those who benefit from them. Countries with cold climates can become cooling centers for the world, while those with hot climates will have to face increased operating costs and reduced competitiveness.
Photo by Reza Asadi on Unsplash
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