As AI demand accelerates, one shift is becoming unmistakable across engineering firms, hyperscalers, and colocation operators: water is now a foundational element of data center design.
Not simply as a utility, but as a system that influences cooling strategy, regulatory exposure, long-term scalability, and the economics of high-density compute.
And because this complexity is growing fast, true water expertise is needed much earlier in the process. This is why partners, engineering firms, and operators increasingly refer to Nautilus as โthe water expertsโ and bring us to the table early in the data center design process.
AI Density Has Made Cooling a Water-Driven Engineering Challenge
Liquid cooling has moved from niche to mandatory:
- 80%+ of next-generation chips require liquid cooling
- Racks routinely operate at 30โ120 kW
- Operators need to double or triple compute density without expanding their footprint
This has pushed engineering teams, distributors, and colocation operators into unfamiliar territory. Many of them were never asked to design water systems; suddenly, they are expected to integrate storage, treatment, distribution, heat rejection, safety systems, and future cooling pathways into a single cohesive plan.
As one of our partners stated: โYou canโt just be bifurcated to a component. You need to own the entire water process.โ This is precisely where Nautilus changes the equation.
Why Partners Consistently View Nautilus as the Water Experts
Across engineering firms, distributors, and system integrators, the same pattern continues to surface: when projects involve liquid cooling and water systems, teams look to Nautilus for guidance.
1. Weโve actually operated water-integrated data centers at scale
Nautilus is one of the few companies in the market that has run a fully liquid-cooled, water-integrated data center at commercial scale for years. This is a major differentiator.
While many providers are still bringing early-stage prototypes to market, Nautilus brings 400,000+ unit hours of real-world, direct-to-chip operational experience. That operational history is why partners trust our recommendations; they know theyโre grounded in what actually works, not theoretical design.
2. Our expertise extends beyond CDUs, it spans the entire water system
Partners consistently highlight one advantage: Nautilus understands the full system and the intricacies of operating a 100% liquid cooled data center, not just the design and install, but the maintenance and operations aspect
We design and guide:
- Best water source
- Water storage
- Treatment and quality control
- Loop architecture
- Heat rejection strategy
- Distribution and hydraulics
- Safety and monitoring systems
- Hybrid cooling pathways
- Future integration options like immersion
- Regulation and permitting
This comprehensive understanding is rare in the market, and it reliably fills the biggest gap engineering teams face when they begin planning high-density projects.
3. Early guidance prevents the most expensive mistakes
Teams frequently encounter challenges when water planning is left too late in the design cycle. By the time mechanical layouts or permit packages are near completion, critical decisions may already be locked in, even if the cooling approach wonโt scale with future IT loads.
Early involvement avoids issues such as:
- Misaligned system designs
- Incorrect water quality assumptions
- Undersized heat rejection capacity
- Safety and compliance gaps
- Redesign cycles that add cost and delay schedules
- Permitting delays and community scrutiny
Bringing the right expertise in up front reduces risk, accelerates deployment, and ensures the infrastructure can support current and future density requirements.
Future-Proofing: Supporting Engineering Teams With Scalable Cooling Strategy
Another repeated theme: When Nautilus guides the water and cooling strategy early, operators gain the flexibility they will need years from now.
With a facility-scale CDU like EcoCore FCD, operators can:
- Maximize data hall space for revenue generation
- Design for air cooled and water cooled IT
- Integrate with DLC, immersion, containment, rear door heat exchangers and all other rack level heat rejection methods
- Future proof the data center for next generation technology
This is one of Nautilusโs strongest differentiators: Operators donโt have to predict the future when their infrastructure is built to adapt to it.
The Bottom Line:
Data centers donโt just need liquid cooling, they need water expertise.
The industry is moving faster than many design teams can adapt.
Liquid cooling is rapidly becoming standard, but the water systems that make it viable remain poorly understood, inconsistently designed, and frequently brought in too late.
Whether itโs a 5 MW build, a brownfield retrofit, or a hyperscale AI deployment, early water expertise is what determines whether the project scales cleanly, or stalls under redesigns, risk, and cost.
