Cooling as foundational infrastructure The evolution of AI infrastructure places cooling at the nexus of data centre design rather than as a secondary consideration.
Richard draws a direct line between cooling capability and operational viability.“ You can have the most advanced computing systems ever developed, but if you can’ t power and cool them reliably and effectively, they’ re basically rendered useless,” he says.
Silicon manufacturers including NVIDIA and AMD now pay close attention to power and cooling infrastructure as AI platforms drive rack densities higher and create dynamic power profiles.
According to Richard, this attention reflects the reality that cooling must function correctly from initial deployment. Air-cooled data centres offered flexibility, allowing operators to move cold air around, mix different compute platforms and work within wide margins of error. Liquid-cooled infrastructure eliminates those margins, he adds.
“ With how intense these heat loads are, if the cooling isn’ t right, the data centre simply won’ t work,” explains Richard.“ You turn everything on, and if the power and cooling aren’ t there, the servers won’ t operate. It becomes very black and white – basically it’ s either right or it’ s wrong.”
26 March 2026