OpenAI has abandoned plans to cool its planned S7 data center in Sydney, Australia, with recycled water.. Data center site – NextDC. According to reports from Reuters, OpenAI nixed the plans in favor of a closed-loop liquid cooling system.
While the system would bring water usage down significantly, it would require significantly more energy than the previous cooling system.. The 612MW facility had initially planned to use sewage water to cool the servers, which would have reduced dependence on potable water sources and significantly lowered the cooling system’s energy requirements.
However, after failing to secure planning permission to build a pipeline to serve the data center, NextDC, the developer, decided to change its plans.. “Recycled water … has real merit and it can support lower PUE and better overall sustainability and NextDC considers it wherever that infrastructure exists,” CEO Craig Scroggie said in an email to Reuters.. Proposals for the data center, titled NextDC S7, were submitted in mid-March, but the land for the project – a 255,135 sqm (2,746,270 sq ft) parcel in Eastern Creek, a major logistics hub in Sydney’s western suburbs – was acquired for AU$353 million (US$244m) back in October 2024..
In December 2025, OpenAI and NextDC announced that they had signed a Memorandum of Understanding that would see the ChatGPT-maker use some of the data center’s capacity, with the option to scale over time.. NextDC has six data centers in Sydney in operation or development, totaling just under 500MW and 178,500 sqm (1.9 million sq ft).
In addition to S3 and S6 in Artarmon, NextDC operates three data centers (S1, S2, and S5) in Macquarie Park and one (S4) in Horsley Park.. OpenAI has secured more than 10GW of contracted AI data center infrastructure capacity across multiple sites globally. This comprises predominantly its Stargate data center portfolio, which includes a flagship site in Abilene, Texas, along with locations in Shackelford County, Texas; Milam County, Texas; Doña Ana County, New Mexico; and Lordstown, Ohio.
Further sites in international markets are also planned.. More in Cooling. 12 May 2026.
19 Feb 2026. More in Australasia. 08 May 2026.
11 Jun 2026
