ECOLAB ATTRACTED ME BECAUSE IT LETS ME COMBINE PERFORMANCE WITH SUSTAINABILITY, WHICH IS PRECISELY WHAT MODERN DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS.
C A S E S T U D Y
What’ s your take on the current growth rate of data centres?
It’ s beyond fast. I’ d call it hypergrowth driven by AI and real-time analytics. When a sector scales that quickly, small mistakes don’ t stay small. If you are casual about water, power or chemistry at the design stage, the cost of those decisions multiplies across a network. Reliability and sustainability are key – and it’ s critical to plan for them from day one rather than retroactively addressing them later.
What do you think is the single biggest shift in data centres as a result of AI?
Power density – we’ re packing far more compute into the same footprint. Air cooling can’ t pull enough heat at those densities, so operators are moving to direct-to-chip liquid cooling. In practice, coolant runs through closed loops and cold plates attached to the processors, carries heat to coolant distribution units, then hands it to the facility side. Thermal design now starts at the chip and flows out to the plant rather than the other way around.
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ECOLAB ATTRACTED ME BECAUSE IT LETS ME COMBINE PERFORMANCE WITH SUSTAINABILITY, WHICH IS PRECISELY WHAT MODERN DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS.
Beyond temperature increase, what sort of issues present themselves with liquid cooling and how do you tackle them?
Once heat rides on a fluid, reliability lives in that fluid loop. We help operators watch for corrosion, fouling and microbial growth, plus practical issues like chemistry mix when racks arrive with different premixes or someone tops up with unbalanced water. Any of these conditions can reduce heat transfer or damage assets. The solution is continuous visibility and tight control – standardise fluids, maintain concentration levels and monitor KPIs in real time to correct issues early before they lead to downtime.
With air systems, chemistry arguably becomes less significant, though it does have a supporting role to play in system efficiency. With liquid cooling, coolant health, optimisation and performance is the goal.
Why has real-time monitoring become so critical?
Most operators aim for continuous reliability. Traditional lab tests are helpful, but slow. If you discover a problem days later, that problem has likely escalated in the interim. Live telemetry shows small deviations early on so the team can adjust chemistry or operating conditions immediately. This helps keep the loop clean, supports heat-exchange
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