In November news, Omen AI, a startup focused on monitoring data center liquid cooling systems, announced that it will acquire competitor Aquatic Labs for $16 million in cash and stock, integrating the two companies’ real-time water quality sensing technologies to advance automated coolant monitoring. Omen AI was founded in 2024 and completed a $31 million Series A funding round in June this year.
According to Water Foundation data, U.S. data centers use about 17 billion to 19 billion gallons of water each year for chip cooling, and that figure is expected to triple over the next five years. Currently, coolant testing usually requires sending samples to a lab, which takes several days. Sensors developed by Omen AI can detect elements in water in real time and identify problems such as valve failures and bacterial growth that can block water flow; Aquatic Labs focuses on detecting water alkalinity. The two companies plan to integrate both technologies into a single sensor, which is expected to reach the market early next year. Aquatic Labs CEO Allan Adams will serve as chief science officer of the combined company.
Omen AI founder Zach Laberge said the company’s first sensors will be used to monitor chips that reach 250 to 300 megawatts of power by the end of this year and are worth about $5 billion to $7 billion. The goal is to expand deployments to chips equivalent to 1 gigawatt by the end of 2027.
Real-time monitoring is expected to help data centers extend the service life of coolant, reduce drainage, replacement, and cleaning costs, and also reduce downtime losses caused by system failures. As investment in AI infrastructure continues to expand, water resource management and liquid cooling operations efficiency at data centers are becoming new technology needs. Omen AI believes its business mainly targets data center projects that have already received funding or are under construction, so it is relatively less affected by short-term swings in sentiment around AI infrastructure investment.
