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Satya Nadella: Microsoft’s latest Wisconsin AI data center keeps yearly water consumption no higher than that of 1 local restaurant. "The cooling loop is filled once and the data centre can operate effectively with zero water consumption. Daily water usage across a year is roughly equivalent to what a single restaurant would use" The mechanism is mainly about replacing evaporative cooling with closed-loop direct-to-chip liquid cooling, so water moves like coolant inside a sealed machine rather than being boiled off into the air. Hot GB200-class AI racks produce too much heat for normal air cooling, so cold liquid is pushed through pipes into the servers and across metal cold plates touching the hottest chips. The liquid enters the rack cool, absorbs heat from the chips through cold plates, then exits the rack at a higher temperature and carries that heat through pipes to a huge cooling system outside the compute floor. Microsoft says Fairwater sends that hot water to cooling “fins” beside the datacenter, where 172 20-foot fans blow air across the fins and dump the heat into the outside air. The important detail is that the air cools the water through metal surfaces, so the water does not need to evaporate the way many older datacenters use cooling towers. The cooled liquid then returns to the servers, repeats the loop, and keeps absorbing heat from the chips. In older data centers, heat is often removed partly through cooling towers. Hot water meets moving air, some water evaporates, and that phase change carries heat away. Effective, but it consumes fresh water continuously. But Firwater is a closed loop because the same coolant keeps circulating through sealed pipes: it absorbs heat from the chips, releases that heat through radiator-like fins, then flows back to the chips again. For Wisconsin Fairwater, Microsoft says more than 90% of the facility uses closed-loop liquid cooling, while the remaining portion uses outside air and switches to water only on the hottest days. ---- From "Microsoft" YouTube channel, (link in comment)

Satya Nadella: Microsoft’s latest Wisconsin AI data center keeps yearly water consumption no higher than that of 1 local restaurant. "The cooling loop is filled once and the data centre can operate effectively with zero water consumption. Daily water usage across a year is roughly equivalent to what a single restaurant would use" The mechanism is mainly about replacing evaporative cooling with closed-loop direct-to-chip liquid cooling, so water moves like coolant inside a sealed machine rather than being boiled off into the air. Hot GB200-class AI racks produce too much heat for normal air cooling, so cold liquid is pushed through pipes into the servers and across metal cold plates touching the hottest chips. The liquid enters the rack cool, absorbs heat from the chips through cold plates, then exits the rack at a higher temperature and carries that heat through pipes to a huge cooling system outside the compute floor. Microsoft says Fairwater sends that hot water to cooling “fins” beside the datacenter, where 172 20-foot fans blow air across the fins and dump the heat into the outside air. The important detail is that the air cools the water through metal surfaces, so the water does not need to evaporate the way many older datacenters use cooling towers. The cooled liquid then returns to the servers, repeats the loop, and keeps absorbing heat from the chips. In older data centers, heat is often removed partly through cooling towers. Hot water meets moving air, some water evaporates, and that phase change carries heat away. Effective, but it consumes fresh water continuously. But Firwater is a closed loop because the same coolant keeps circulating through sealed pipes: it absorbs heat from the chips, releases that heat through radiator-like fins, then flows back to the chips again. For Wisconsin Fairwater, Microsoft says more than 90% of the facility uses closed-loop liquid cooling, while the remaining portion uses outside air and switches to water only on the hottest days. ---- From "Microsoft" YouTube channel, (link in comment)

Satya Nadella: Microsoft’s latest Wisconsin AI data center keeps yearly water consumption no higher than that of 1 local restaurant. "The cooling loop is filled once and the data centre can operate effectively with zero water consumption. Daily water usage across a year is roughly equivalent to what a single restaurant would use" The mechanism is mainly about replacing evaporative cooling with closed-loop direct-to-chip liquid cooling, so water moves like coolant inside a sealed machine rather than being boiled off into the air. Hot GB200-class AI racks produce too much heat for normal air cooling, so cold liquid is pushed through pipes into the servers and across metal cold plates touching the hottest chips. The liquid enters the rack cool, absorbs heat from the chips through cold plates, then exits the rack at a higher temperature and carries that heat through pipes to a huge cooling system outside the compute floor. Microsoft says Fairwater sends that hot water to cooling “fins” beside the datacenter, where 172 20-foot fans blow air across the fins and dump the heat into the outside air. The important detail is that the air cools the water through metal surfaces, so the water does not need to evaporate the way many older datacenters use cooling towers. The cooled liquid then returns to the servers, repeats the loop, and keeps absorbing heat from the chips. In older data centers, heat is often removed partly through cooling towers. Hot water meets moving air, some water evaporates, and that phase change carries heat away. Effective, but it consumes fresh water continuously. But Firwater is a closed loop because the same coolant keeps circulating through sealed pipes: it absorbs heat from the chips, releases that heat through radiator-like fins, then flows back to the chips again. For Wisconsin Fairwater, Microsoft says more than 90% of the facility uses closed-loop liquid cooling, while the remaining portion uses outside air and switches to water only on the hottest days. ---- From "Microsoft" YouTube channel, (link in comment)

Satya Nadella: Microsoft’s latest Wisconsin AI data center keeps yearly water consumption no higher than that of 1 local restaurant. "The cooling loop is filled once and the data centre can operate effectively with zero water consumption. Daily water usage across a year is roughly equivalent to what a single restaurant would use" The mechanism is mainly about replacing evaporative cooling with closed-loop direct-to-chip liquid cooling, so water moves like coolant inside a sealed machine rather than being boiled off into the air. Hot GB200-class AI racks produce too much heat for normal air cooling, so cold liquid is pushed through pipes into the servers and across metal cold plates touching the hottest chips. The liquid enters the rack cool, absorbs heat from the chips through cold plates, then exits the rack at a higher temperature and carries that heat through pipes to a huge cooling system outside the compute floor. Microsoft says Fairwater sends that hot water to cooling “fins” beside the datacenter, where 172 20-foot fans blow air across the fins and dump the heat into the outside air. The important detail is that the air cools the water through metal surfaces, so the water does not need to evaporate the way many older datacenters use cooling towers. The cooled liquid then returns to the servers, repeats the loop, and keeps absorbing heat from the chips. In older data centers, heat is often removed partly through cooling towers. Hot water meets moving air, some water evaporates, and that phase change carries heat away. Effective, but it consumes fresh water continuously. But Firwater is a closed loop because the same coolant keeps circulating through sealed pipes: it absorbs heat from the chips, releases that heat through radiator-like fins, then flows back to the chips again. For Wisconsin Fairwater, Microsoft says more than 90% of the facility uses closed-loop liquid cooling, while the remaining portion uses outside air and switches to water only on the hottest days. ---- From "Microsoft" YouTube channel, (link in comment)

WSJ just published a piece, on how Data centers can be a huge win for local communities. In Loudoun County, removing them could mean about $5,800 more in annual property taxes for homeowners just to maintain the same services. In Louisiana, Meta’s data-center tax revenue helped fund teacher bonuses of up to $50,000. "Data centers also generate scant pollution. Their CO2 emissions mainly stem from the natural gas plants that power them. But modern gas generators produce upward of 90% less fine particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide than a steel mill."

Meta has released Muse Voice Transcribe, taking the #1 spot for Final Transcript accuracy on AA-WER Streaming with 3.1% WER at 0.16s after end of speech Muse Voice Transcribe is the first streaming Speech to Text model developed by Meta Superintelligence Labs. Meta states that the model was trained on more than 70 languages, with 25 extensively verified, and supports audio inputs exceeding one hour without required post-processing. It processes audio in 80ms chunks and is available through the Meta Model API, Meta AI for Mac and Muse Code. Key takeaways ➤ Final Transcript: Muse Voice Transcribe achieves 3.1% WER at 0.16s after end of speech. It is more accurate and faster than Cartesia Ink-2 (semantic endpoints) at 3.4% and 0.43s, and more accurate but slower than Cartesia Ink-2 (external endpoints) at 4.0% and 0.07s. It is also more accurate, though slightly slower, than ElevenLabs Scribe v2 Realtime at 3.6% and 0.14s. ➤ First Partial Transcript: The model achieves 3.6% WER at 0.13s, just ahead of ElevenLabs Scribe v2 Realtime on accuracy and latency. It is more accurate and faster than Cartesia Ink-2 (semantic endpoints) at 4.9% and 0.17s, and more accurate but slower than Cartesia Ink-2 (external endpoints) at 4.0% and 0.07s. ➤ Price: Muse Voice Transcribe costs $0.18 per hour, or $3 per 1,000 minutes. This is below Cartesia Ink-2 at $4 and less than half the $6.50 charged for ElevenLabs Scribe v2 Realtime and Deepgram Flux. See more details below ⬇️