Air cooling is cheapest per MW but caps at roughly 30 kW per rack . Evaporative cooling adds capex and water consumption but supports higher densities. Liquid cooling (direct-to-chip or immersion) is the most expensive per MW but required for AI workloads above 50 kW per rack. Lenders price obsolescence risk on air-only designs.
Why cooling architecture is now a credit variable
Per EPRI research on data center electricity, the shift toward AI training workloads has driven rack densities from a 2010s norm of 5 to 10 kW per rack to a 2025 design point of 30 to 100 kW per rack. Air cooling becomes infeasible above roughly 30 kW per rack, and evaporative or liquid cooling becomes a required architecture for high-density AI deployments.
Lenders treat cooling architecture as a forward-looking obsolescence risk. A facility designed in 2020 for 10 kW per rack air cooling is structurally less attractive to a 2026 AI-focused tenant than a facility designed for liquid cooling at 50 kW per rack. The financing community has begun to discount older air-cooled facilities on exit cap rate and on residual lease assumptions.
Sources
- Powering Intelligence: Analyzing Artificial Intelligence and Data Center Use of Electricity · Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) · current
- Better Buildings Data Center Accelerator and Challenge · U.S. Department of Energy · current