NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang says next-gen DGX AI system will be liquid cooled

NVIDIA is preparing its next-generation Blackwell GPU architecture as you're reading this, but now NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has said that the company's next DGX AI system will be liquid-cooled.

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This might not seem like much, but data centers aren't easy to liquid cool... it will be a huge infrastructure investment to continue down this path, but the insatiable demand for AI is driving it down this road. NVIDIA's next-gen Blackwell B100 AI GPU is expected to be unveiled at NVIDIA's upcoming GPU Technology Conference (GTC) event, while Dell recently teased the beefed-up B200 for 2025.

NVIDIA's next-gen B200 AI GPU is expected to draw 1000W+ of power when it drops in 2025, so hearing Jensen talk about the new DGX AI system being liquid-cooled makes sense if you consider those power numbers.

Moor Insights & Strategy Founder, CEO, and Chief Analyst Patrick Moorhead posted on X: "So we've pulled nearly every lever so far to optimize performance at a kinda reasonable degree of heat/power: Node shrinks, disaggregated designs and packaging. What's next, liquid nitrogen? Optical packaging? Hard move to ASICs? Faster networking? Seems like we need to press the reset button on something as we're running into a wall."

• Read more: NVIDIA's next-gen B200 AI GPU uses 1000W of power per GPU, confirmed by Dell
• Read more: NVIDIA's next-next-gen R100 GPU could be named after astronomer Vera Rubin
• Read more: NVIDIA's next-gen GB200 'Blackwell' GPU listed on its 2024 data center roadmap
• Read more: NVIDIA next-gen B100 AI GPU 'supply constrained, demand far exceeds supply'
• Read more: NVIDIA: next-gen B100 Blackwell GPU: over 4x as fast as H100 AI GPU

Dell COO and Vice Chairman Jeff Clarke said last week: "We're excited about what happens at the B100 and the B200, and we think that's where there's actually another opportunity to distinguish engineering confidence. Our characterization in the thermal side, you really don't need direct liquid cooling to get to the energy density of 1000 watts per GPU".

"That happens next year with the B200. The opportunity for us really to showcase our engineering and how fast we can move and the work that we've done as an industry leader to bring our expertise to make liquid cooling perform at scale".