Water Management Strategies: Data Centre LIVE 2026

The expanding scale of high-density computing and artificial intelligence workloads is driving a reassessment of resource management within global digital infrastructure. Standard water use efficiency metrics are increasingly seen as partial indicators, as operators must now account for indirect water footprint factors, regional baseline chemistry variations, and fluid discharge regulations. In this panel discussion from Data Centre LIVE 2026, John Bychkowski, Global Applications Manager at Chem-Aqua, and Matt Rutherford, Data Centre Business Unit Director - EMENA at Evapco, outline the strategic integration of modern cooling technologies. The session addresses technical differences across the heat rejection spectrum, comparing the performance metrics of evaporative cooling towers, dry coolers, adiabatic configurations, and hybrid systems. The experts detail the operational challenges brought by advanced architectures, explaining how direct-to-chip cooling loops alter the parameters of heat transfer. While sealed fluid loops reduce a facility's reliance on continuous municipal potable water, the high-temperature thresholds of technical secondary loops make them highly sensitive to water quality variations. Unmanaged deviations can cause scaling, corrosion, or microscopic biological film accumulation that reduces overall chiller efficiency. The panel also addresses key risk mitigation factors, including stringent commissioning flush cycles, continuous pathogen testing protocols, Gray water recycling infrastructure, and the emerging trend of data centre operators building proprietary onsite wastewater treatment utilities to protect local resource security. Follow the Data Centre stories further: • LinkedIn:   / data-centres-magazine   • Website: https://www.datacentremagazine.com/ • Twitter:   / datacentre_mag   • Facebook:   / datacentremag