US data center cooling market: key trends and developments

In many ways, a look at the US data center cooling market is synonymous with exploring the trends and cutting-edge technologies that will shape the industry in the future.

Specialized organizations like the IEA are reporting a significant investment surge. In the US in particular, “annual investment in data center construction has doubled in the past two years alone”.

This rapid growth in US data center investments is also bringing unprecedented developments in data center cooling technology. Data center cooling can take up  40% of total energy consumption in these facilities, meaning a focus on improving these systems’ efficiency represents a crucial step toward reducing operational costs and minimizing their environmental impact. This is particularly important as energy demand for data centers is expected to surge as more energy-intensive technologies derived from artificial intelligence make their way into mainstream use.

With concerns around the environmental impact of data centers growing and increasingly strict regulatory measures targeting their energy consumption, the US data center cooling market is set for profound shifts and transformations. In this context, innovative cooling technologies capable of achieving top efficiencies hold the key to a new era of data center cooling.

Current trends and figures in the US data center

Projected market growth

A number of specialized market research firms have looked at both the global data center cooling market, as well as the US data center cooling market: 

• Fortune Business Insights valued the global data center cooling market size at USD 15.16 billion in 2023, and projected it to grow from USD 16.84 billion in 2024 to USD 42.48 billion by 2032, with a CAGR of 12.3%.
• According to Mordor Intelligence, the US data center cooling market size was valued at USD 7.20 billion in 2025, and is forecasted to reach USD 12.58 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 11.8%.
• Globe Newswire forecasts an increase from US$81.69 billion in 2023 to US$127.87 billion in 2029, at a CAGR of 11.65% for the US data center cooling market.

The types of data center cooling

The past years have seen an increase in CRAC and CRAH adoption, which has grown 64% between 2020 and 2023 in the US, according to Globe Newswire. However, innovative solutions related to liquid cooling are growing rapidly. At a global level, around 40% of data centers are expected to adopt liquid cooling by 2026. And the US data center cooling market is no exception.

Expert research initiatives cited above foresee liquid cooling as the technology showcasing the highest CAGR in the market. This surge for the diverse options of liquid cooling is directly linked to this technology’s enhanced efficiency, which is expected to support higher-density server configurations while also achieving improved efficiencies. 

This surge in demand is also expected to bring in new technologies and innovations, making liquid cooling increasingly affordable.

With all research initiatives pointing towards the growth of large scale data centers, innovative cooling solutions such as direct-to-chip cooling and modular infrastructures stand out for their potential to support growing rack power densities.

Key drivers for the US data center cooling market

• Increasing digitization has brought about major investments in data center infrastructure. The rise of cloud storage and SaaS providers have been major contributors to this surge. 
• The higher power densities required by advanced technologies such as generative AI, which need support by increasingly efficient cooling solutions. With power demands rising to up to 80 kW per rack (and which could climb to reach 150 kW in the coming years), advanced cooling technologies are expected to support the ensuing increase in heat while guaranteeing redundancy.
• Strategic mergers and acquisitions are facilitating access to advanced cooling technologies in the context of larger and more complex US data center projects.
• The rise of regulations and standards targeting efficiency for US data centers have put data center cooling innovation on the spot. These include the Data Center Optimization Initiative by the U.S. Government, but also state-level regulations such as Virginia’s proposal for data center energy efficiency requirements.

Future trends shaping the US data center cooling market

As mentioned above, the US data center cooling market provides a unique look at the most significant trends that will be shaping the future of this sector on a global scale. 

At the same time, the key trends in the US data center market also align with crucial movements in data center trends in Europe, in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia. A testament of how advancements in the data center cooling market today are synonymous with global efforts to take these technologies to their fullest potential.

AI adoption to optimize cooling and make it more dynamic

The implementation of AI in data center cooling is expected to bring significant optimizations. In fact, the 2024 survey by Uptime Institute found “the number of operators that have deployed AI in production has been growing rapidly”. 

2024 was also the year when Google announced that implementing advanced AI across their data centers managed to reduce their data center cooling bills by 40%. 

The role of AI in optimizing data center cooling involves using large sets of historical and real-time data to dynamically adjust cooling systems. When adjusted for enhancing efficiency and minimizing energy use, these technologies provide a great potential for automated efficiency.

The rise of efficient cooling and green data centers

Increasingly strict regulations and the need to accommodate growing power densities while also making a profit have all collided for a single trend to materialize: the US data center of the future must necessarily embrace sustainability.

Today, 88% of data center operators claim “IT or data center power consumption” is a top priority, according to Uptime Institute’s Global Data Center Results in 2023. This concern is well-founded: improving energy efficiency not only reduces operational costs, but is also key for data center redundancy. 

There are various ways in which data center operators are approaching the issue. On the one hand, an increasing importance of site selection indicates access to resources such as water supplies or cool temperatures for free cooling has become more and more vital. 

On the other hand, the choice of eco-friendly data center cooling solutions emerges as a key strategy. Today, a number of advanced technologies are facilitating significant savings in data center cooling and pointing towards a new era where efficiency and sustainability are at the forefront:

• Liquid cooling solutions: these are based on absorbing and dissipating the heat generated by IT equipment by circulating specialized cooling liquids. Because liquids present a higher thermal conductivity than air, this technique improves efficiencies when compared to air-based data center cooling. Today, advanced data center liquid cooling solutions include:

1. Liquid immersion cooling: involves submerging IT equipment into fluids to absorb its heat.
2. Direct-to-chip cooling: circulates fluids directly to processing chips and key components that produce the most heat in equipment.

• Waste-heat recovery structures: this approach involves creating synergies with nearby facilities to ensure the heat generated by the data center can be repurposed by third parties, thus reducing the environmental impact of data centers. Power stations or factories are two examples of repurposing this heat for industrial purposes. At the same time, data centers are joining forces with district heating solutions to generate circular models where energy losses are reduced to a minimum.
  
  
• Thermal Energy Storage (TES) Tanks: these systems are in charge of storing excess thermal energy for later use (such as peak operational hours), helping manage cooling demand and reduce overall energy consumption. As such, TES systems are key for developing dynamic data center cooling and improving energy efficiency.
  
  
• Modular cooling plants: a highly scalable model that prioritises energy efficiency and sustainability by adapting to the real cooling needs and requirements of each data center. It is based on creating a cooling system with  prefabricated components (modules). In these cooling projects, the system’s components are typically built off-site at dedicated manufacturing facilities, and then assembled on-site. This allows for a faster installation. 

At the same time, elements such as modular cooling towers, chillers, pumps, and control units can be added or removed as needed, allowing for easy scalability: in order to increase or decrease cooling capacities, it’s possible to simply incorporate or remove additional modules.

Want to learn more about green data centers and the most significant trends in the US data center cooling market for the immediate future?

At Araner, we’re committed to putting our thermal engineering expertise to work to allow data center operators to reach top efficiencies. Discover our cutting-edge solutions in data center cooling and get in touch with us to speak to our team about your project’s needs and how we can help you achieve them.