Susana Schwartz
Cooling system and HVAC stocks such as Johnson Controls, Modine Manufacturing, Trane Technologies, and Carrier Global saw sharp declines after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s CES remarks that new Rubin AI chips might need less intensive cooling (warmer water/fewer chillers). The comment triggered fears but most analysts stuck by current estimates for the market. Large-scale water chillers and related infrastructure keep data centers and server components at optimal temperatures to prevent overheating and damage. The current technologies are rapidly evolving, and today, in “Say ‘goodbye’ to the data hall in data center design?” RCRTech examines whether an assembly-line approach to high-density AI compute-in-a-box can address the cooling and operational inefficiencies of today’s brick-and-mortar data centers. It’s a novel idea that will perhaps get some data center operators to think “out of the box” about how to lower per-MW data center construction and compute costs.
Susana Schwartz
Technology Editor
RCRTech
AI Infrastructure Top Stories
Swarm’s “assembly line” data centers: To industrialize AI infrastructure, componentized data centers built on assembly lines could foster iterative and repeatable designs that rapidly scale and boost cooling efficiency.
JLL Global Data Center Report: JLL has estimated $3 trillion of AI infrastructure investment over five years, with AI-related uses to account for about half of DC capacity, with estimates of growth from 103 GW currently to 200 GW by 2030.
What to make of Nvidia at CES?: As head of the world’s most valuable company, Jenson Huang’s said at CES that the future is enterprise AI, industrial robotics, and physical intelligence. He also showcased Rubin, a six‑chip rack-scale AI platform.
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AI Today: What You Need to Know
Nvidia training and inference: The new Rubin platform uses “extreme codesign” across six chips for a 10x reduction in inference token cost and 4x reduction in number of GPUs to train MoE models.
NIST and MITRE partner for AI: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and MITRE will work to bolster U.S. AI leadership. NIST will invest $20 million to advance manufacturing and cybersecurity for AI infrastructure.
Data center rebellion is here: The Washington Post covers the groundswell of opposition from local communities against data centers, and how its reshaping the political landscape as communities anticipate impact on water and energy.
Fermi’s 5,800 energy grid: Fermi America, a startup led by former Texas governor and U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Dallas billionaire Toby Neugebauer, is developing the world’s largest private energy grid and AI campus.
New Samsung DC in SK: Samsung’s IT services unit, Samsung SDS, will build a facility in Gumi, a city in North Gyeongsang Province. The $295 million data center in eastern South Korea will be built on the site of a former manufacturing plant.
Consolidation of Chinese chip factories: In a push for semiconductor self-sufficiency, leading Chinese chipmakers like SMIC and Hua Hong are pursuing large domestic acquisitions that break the constraints of recent U.S. export controls.
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