US data centers consume an astonishing 17 to 19 billion gallons of water annually for cooling their high-powered chips, a figure projected to triple within the next five years, according to The Water Foundation.
This substantial water demand presents a costly and politically sensitive challenge for investors allocating billions towards scaling up AI infrastructure. A more sustainable approach involves enhancing the monitoring of cooling fluids, a process currently reliant on slow, multi-day laboratory analyses of sent-out samples.
Founded in 2024, Omen AI emerged to address this critical issue. The company is developing a real-time sensor designed to detect valve failures and prevent disruptions from bacterial growth that could impede water flow. Following a successful $31 million Series A funding round in June, Omen is now expanding through the acquisition of rival Aquatic Labs in a $16 million cash-and-stock transaction.
The acquisition materialized after Omen founder Zach Laberge was introduced to Aquatic Labs’ CEO Allan Adams by a mutual investor in the water filtration sector. Both startups had been independently developing real-time water sensors with complementary capabilities: Omen’s technology focused on identifying specific elements in water, while Aquatic Labs’ sensor specialized in testing alkalinity.
Integrating these two distinct technologies into a single sensor provides a “much richer picture of the water and the fluid,” Adams explained to TechCrunch, thereby realizing their shared objective of automating what was previously a tedious, manual operation.
This merger brings together two archetypal founder profiles: Laberge, who left high school to launch his first venture focused on fluid analysis for hydraulic construction machinery, and Adams, a physicist by training who spent a significant portion of his career as an MIT professor and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute researcher, pioneering advanced ocean sensing before establishing his company.
With Adams now serving as the company’s chief science officer, the combined teams are focused on integrating both technologies into a unified sensor, expected to hit the market early next year. Laberge informed TechCrunch that Omen’s initial sensors are slated to monitor chips consuming 250 to 300 MW of power, valued at approximately $5 to $7 billion, by year-end, with aspirations to oversee the equivalent of 1 GW of chips by the close of 2027.
The core benefit lies in maximizing uptime: should the fluid system malfunction, data center operators typically opt to discard the water rather than risk costly damage to their valuable equipment. This often necessitates shutting down operations until the system is restored, incurring substantial financial losses. Advanced monitoring allows data center operators to extend the lifespan of their fluids and minimize expenses associated with system cleanups.
Adams also expressed his ambition for their technologies to extend beyond data centers, stating to TechCrunch that “water goes into data centers, and then it comes out and gets dumped into municipal water, and you want that whole process to happen in a way that’s as safe and responsible as possible — and that means you got to measure stuff.”
While AI companies once projected infrastructure spending of up to $4 trillion by 2030, recent investor skepticism regarding the buildout has led to a decline in hyperscaler stocks. However, Omen’s team remains unconcerned by this shifting sentiment, as their solutions are deployed after data centers have been constructed.
Laberge confirmed, “We’re working customers on stuff they’re building today or have already built, and so it doesn’t really affect us because all of those projects were financed 12 months ago.” He added, “Our view is, if there’s tightness, this is still going to be the biggest market in human history, even if you sliced it in half.”