AI Cooling Bill Mandates Federal Review of Liquid Cooling Tech Amid Soaring Data Center Energy Use

If you’ve noticed your electric bill creeping up, you’re not alone. The Liquid Cooling for AI Act of 2025 is Congress’s attempt to get a handle on one of the fastest-growing energy hogs in the country: the data centers powering Artificial Intelligence. The bill starts with a stark finding: data centers used 4.4% of all U.S. electricity in 2023, and that number could spike to nearly 13% by 2028. This new law mandates a comprehensive federal review of liquid cooling technologies—the high-tech way of keeping those powerful, heat-generating AI chips from melting down—to see if it’s the answer to our energy problem and how the government should adopt it.

The Great Data Center Energy Drain

Think of the chips running AI like a super-powered laptop that never turns off. They generate so much heat that traditional air conditioning can’t keep up. This bill recognizes that liquid cooling—where you run coolant directly over the chips (Direct-to-Chip, or DTC) or even dunk the whole server in specialized fluid (Immersion Cooling)—is becoming essential. The promise? Better performance, higher server density, and most importantly, less energy wasted on cooling. The bill’s core mechanism is a massive study: the Government Accountability Office (GAO) must conduct a deep dive into the costs, energy savings, security implications, and market adoption of these systems within 90 days of the law passing (SEC. 3).

What This Means for Your Grid and Wallet

The GAO review isn't just an academic exercise; it’s about real-world costs. They are tasked with calculating the energy savings from liquid cooling, specifically looking at how much money the country could save by avoiding expensive upgrades to power grids and infrastructure (SEC. 3). If liquid cooling proves to be significantly more efficient, it could slow the demand for new power plants, which ultimately affects everyone’s utility rates. For the average person, this bill is a long-shot bet on technology to stabilize energy costs in the face of skyrocketing AI demand. The review also has to survey opportunities for reusing the waste heat generated by these centers—turning a massive exhaust problem into a potential resource, like heating nearby buildings or industrial processes.

Setting the Federal Standard

One of the biggest practical impacts of this bill is that it forces the federal government to get its house in order. The GAO must recommend whether liquid cooling should become the default way the government cools its own servers, and they have to develop standard designs for setting up these systems. This will set a powerful precedent for the entire industry. However, the bill does raise a couple of flags. First, the Secretary of Energy is required to suggest ways to reuse waste heat, but only “if it makes technical sense.” That vague wording could give the Department an easy out if the solutions prove politically or financially inconvenient. Second, the bill mandates that the GAO and the Secretary of Energy must designate one specific industry organization to promote liquid cooling. This move risks concentrating too much power and influence over future industry standards into a single, potentially biased, organization (SEC. 3).

The Pressure on Current Data Centers

If the GAO’s findings confirm that liquid cooling is the future, existing data center operators who rely on traditional, less efficient air cooling could face significant pressure—or even future regulatory mandates—to upgrade their infrastructure. While manufacturers of pumps, coolants, and specialized hardware stand to benefit from a new federal focus, the cost of these transitions could potentially be passed down to the consumers and businesses relying on cloud services. This bill is less about immediate regulation and more about gathering the facts needed to build the next generation of energy policy around AI, ensuring the government knows exactly what it’s buying and how that purchase impacts the national energy picture.