Two minutes of TV

The tour

A big AI datacenter, from the wires in to the heat out.

The building on this page is a real design for a large AI datacenter, the size being built now. A megawatt is a million watts; this one takes a hundred of them. Six short steps, and every number links to its source.

Power lines, then a cabinet of chips, then a radiator with a fan: electricity in, heat out electricity in chips turn it to heat heat out

Step 1

One building = about 83,000 homes.

A big AI datacenter takes about 100 MW from the grid, about what ≈82,800 average homes use. It arrives through about ≈60 electrical units along the building's sides, each the size of a shipping container and rated at 2 MW. Five of them share the work of four, so one can fail without anything noticing.

Bringing that much power to one place means new lines and sometimes new power plants, and your state's utility commission decides who pays for them. The story page answers "will it raise my bill?", with the figures and what to ask.

Power lines arriving at a long low building with sixty container-sized electrical units along its sides
Sixty electrical units along the building, each about 2 MW.

Step 2

One cabinet = about 120 homes, all of it becoming heat.

Inside are 552 racks, each holding 72 chips. A cabinet draws about 145 kW, as much as about 120 homes, and every bit of it becomes heat, the way a space heater turns electricity into warmth. That's the whole problem a datacenter has to solve: getting the heat out.

One cabinet with its door open showing trays of chips, beside a small house marked times 120 × 120 homes
One cabinet: 72 chips, 145 kW, the draw of about 120 homes.

Step 3

A sealed loop = 93% of the heat carried away.

In this building, liquid runs right past the chips and carries the heat away, the way the coolant in a car carries heat from the engine to the radiator. It picks up about 93% of the heat that way. The liquid never leaves the pipes.

A sealed loop of pipe from the chips to a box at the end of the row, out to the yard, and back chips pump
Warm out, cool back, in sealed pipes.

Step 4

Air instead of water = almost no water, a little more electricity.

The old way: evaporate water. A cooling tower works like sweat, and it uses water on site, sometimes a lot, especially somewhere hot: older buildings average 1.8 to 1.9 liters of water for every kilowatt-hour the computers use, about half a gallon. The other way: blow air over big radiators, like the fan on the back of a car. That uses almost no water at the building, but takes roughly a third to three-quarters more electricity to do the same job (0.30 to 0.74 kWh/kWh). Same company, same computers: one building in Jakarta uses 140× the water of one in Stockholm. The difference is this choice and the weather.

AWS, own disclosure 0.02 L/kWh in Stockholm, 2.85 L/kWh in Jakarta.

Two ways to get rid of heat: a cooling tower with a plume and drops leaving it, and a yard of radiators with fans and no drops evaporate water cheap, and wet blow air over radiators dry, and it costs more electricity
Two ways to shed the same heat.

Step 5

Four drops in five = at the power plant, not the building.

Power plants evaporate water too, to make electricity for everything. For a typical modern AI building, 81% of the water it's responsible for is at the plant, not the building: about half a gallon for every kilowatt-hour on an average US grid (1.8 L/kWh). So the cooling choice on the last step decides the one drop in five. The electricity decides the other four.

Step 6

The whole staff = 24 to 30 people.

About 3.75 football fields under one roof, on ≈140 acres, run by 24 to 30 around the clock. Their sinks and bathrooms use about 528 gallons a day, far less than a drop each across the ≈1.19 billion people the building could serve. That's a datacenter. The drawings are below for anyone who wants them, and the sources page has every number.

The building with football fields laid along it and a small group of people at the door
3.75 football fields long, 24 to 30 people on site.
The drawings, for the engineers: section, plan and equipment list
Layers
Conceptual section through one data hall and the chiller yard A single-storey hall with rows of liquid-cooled racks, coolant distribution units at the row ends, overhead electrical busway, and outside the wall a yard of air-cooled chillers rejecting heat to air. There is no cooling tower and no plume. grade data hall, single storey, slab on grade GB300 NVL72 rack, 145 kW average racks, hot aisle / cold aisle, liquid cooled Coolant distribution unit CDU CDU facility loop, 32 °C supply Air-cooled chiller, 630 ton, integrated free cooling air-cooled chillers heat to air: no tower, no plume Modular 2 MW electrical line-up 2 MW overhead busway 360 ft across the short axis yard, 400 ft deep conceptual section. not to scale in the vertical.
Section. Liquid captures 93% of the heat at the chip and carries it to the yard. Chillers reject it to air. Tap any component for its entry in the schedule.
Measured conceptual plan of the building and chiller yard A 600 by 360 foot building with four data halls of about 24,000 square feet each, electrical galleries along both long sides, and a 620 by 400 foot chiller yard with sixty plants on a 62 foot grid in six rows of ten. building, ≈216,000 SF Data hall, about 24,000 SF, 138 racks hall 1, 138 racks hall 2, 138 racks hall 3, 138 racks hall 4, 138 racks Electrical gallery: 30 line-ups of 2 MW each side electrical gallery, 30 line-ups at 2 MW electrical gallery, 30 line-ups at 2 MW CDU and pump gallery CDU gallery supply / return mains 600 ft 360 ft 200 ft 120 ft chiller yard, 620 ft × 400 ft, ≈60 chillers on a 62 ft grid Air-cooled chiller, 630 ton six blocks of ten, N+1, air-cooled, integrated free cooling no cooling towers 62 ft plan. 1 ft = 1.2 units.
Plan. Two halls along the length, two across. Electrical galleries run the long sides. The yard is the payload: ≈60 chillers rejecting heat to air, and no cooling tower anywhere on the site.
Equipment schedule
TagComponentQtyRatingNotes
IT-1GB300 NVL72 rack552145 kW average72 GPUs per rack. 39,744 GPUs total. Direct liquid cooling, 93% capture.
CH-1Air-cooled chiller≈60630 tonsN+1, six blocks of ten, integrated free cooling. Rejects heat to air. No evaporative makeup.
CDU-1Coolant distribution unitper hallfacility loop, 32 °C supplyIsolates the chip loop from the facility loop. Free cooling available at 32 °C supply for most of the year.
E-1Modular electrical line-up≈602 MWDistributed redundant, 5-to-make-4. Peak design PUE 1.35, annualized 1.20 PUE.
W-1Domestic water1≈2,000 L/dayWhole building, 24 to 30 people. 0.7 µL per user-day.

Peak design PUE 1.35 PUE, annualized 1.20 PUE. Liquid captures 93% of the heat at the chip. ≈60 line-ups at 2 MW, 5-to-make-4.