Enabling Sustainable Data Centers with Nobel Prize-Winning Science

Behind every search query, AI prompt, and cloud-stored file sits a quietly humming reality: data centers are now among the most resource-intensive infrastructures on the planet. They consume staggering volumes of water and emit substantial amounts of CO₂ to keep the digital world running. In France, for example, emissions from data centers have risen by 23% in 2024 alone, according to a recent study. The explosive rise of artificial intelligence, the continued expansion of cloud services, and the relentless pace of global digitalization are pushing demand to unprecedented levels—straining grids, watersheds, and climate targets.

At this scale, sustainability can no longer be treated as a corporate side initiative or a future ambition. It has become mission-critical: a defining factor in how data centers are designed, financed, operated, and ultimately judged. The operators who recognize this shift are not just reducing their environmental footprint; they are building the resilience, efficiency, and credibility required to thrive in the next era of digital infrastructure.

This is where Atoco comes in. Built on Nobel Prize-winning science, Atoco is on a mission to tackle climate change by addressing two of the most pressing constraints facing data center operators today: carbon emissions and water scarcity. Two transformative technologies sit at the core of this mission. Atmospheric Water Harvesting (AWH) generates fresh water directly from air, reducing reliance on strained municipal supplies. Carbon Capture (CC) unlocks scalable, cost-efficient CO₂ removal from both ambient air and industrial emissions, giving operators a credible path to decarbonize at the pace the climate demands. Together, they offer a new operating model for data centers: one where compute capacity expands while environmental impact contracts.

Atoco’s Atmospheric Water Harvesting (AWH) technology converts the ultra-low-grade waste heat that data centers produce in abundance into pure, distilled-quality water generated directly on-site. Thanks to its exceptional purity, the harvested water is suitable for cooling and any other operational use within the facility, enabling more resilient and water-independent operation with improvement in Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE). This is particularly valuable in arid or remote regions, where access to natural freshwater is limited, and conventional supply options can be unreliable and costly. Even under such harsh, low-humidity conditions, Atoco’s technology delivers water at scale. And because the process consumes part of the available waste heat, it simultaneously lightens the thermal load on the data center’s cooling infrastructure, improving energy efficiency and Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)

Find out more in our white paper: Sustainable AI in a Water-Scarce World

The benefits extend well beyond reliable water supply. The exceptional purity of the harvested water minimizes corrosion and contamination in cooling loops, extending the lifespan of critical equipment and reducing long-term operating expenditure. At the same time, on-site generation gives operators a level of strategic independence, insulating them from permitting challenges, municipal restrictions, drought conditions, and rising water tariffs. And because the same system can supply water for cooling, potable use, or community replenishment, Atoco’s AWH technology offers a credible, measurable path toward water-positive commitments. What was once a thermal waste stream becomes the foundation for a more efficient, more resilient, and more environmentally accountable operation.

Atoco designs and develops solid-state carbon capture modules that remove CO₂ directly from the atmosphere. In a data center context, the approach fits naturally with infrastructure that already exists. Data centers move large volumes of air through highly controlled environments around the clock, and Atoco’s DAC technology is designed to leverage those same air streams, allowing routine cooling operations to contribute to carbon removal.

The economics follow a similar logic to AWH. By leveraging the existing air stream and using the ultra-low-grade waste heat that data centers already produce, Atoco’s DAC technology reduces the energy cost of captured CO₂ substantially. The captured CO₂ can be sold, unlocking a new revenue-stream for data centers. For operators working to meet net-zero commitments without compromising performance, Atoco’s DAC technology offers a practical option: reduced CO₂ emissions + additional revenue.

Learn more on DAC for data centers: Built-In Direct Air Capture: The Data Center Opportunity | Atoco

Beyond DAC, Atoco also tackles capturing CO₂ at point-source. This is increasingly relevant for the data center industry, where grid interconnection timelines create a bottleneck and operators are turning to on-site generation to bring new capacity online at the pace AI growth demands. Atoco’s Post-Combustion Capture (PCC) technology integrates directly with these on-site power systems, capturing CO₂ where it is produced.

The strategic implication is significant. By efficiently capturing CO₂ from low-concentration flue gas streams — as low as 3–5% CO₂ when natural gas is used for on-site power generation — Atoco’s PCC technology enables faster deployment and increased speed-to-power for data centers. This gives operators a way to deploy new compute capacity quickly without waiting for grid interconnection approvals with low-carbon power, generated on site. Emissions are reduced where they originate, not on paper, providing a more credible foundation for sustainability commitments. Combined with the reliable, cost-efficient baseload power that on-site systems can deliver, PCC offers operators a route to scale data center capacity in a way that aligns commercial urgency with climate accountability, rather than forcing a choice between the two.

Underpinning all of Atoco’s technologies is a class of nano-engineered materials known as reticular materials, invented by Atoco’s Founder and Chief Science Officer, Nobel laureate Prof. Omar Yaghi. These materials can be designed with atomic precision, allowing scientists to tailor their internal structure to selectively capture specific molecules, whether water vapor, CO₂ from ambient air, or CO₂ from concentrated flue gas. What makes them particularly powerful is their extraordinary porosity. A single gram of reticular material can offer an internal surface area equivalent to an entire soccer field, providing an enormous canvas for molecular capture and release at a level of efficiency conventional materials cannot match.

This combination of molecular precision design is the foundation for technologies that are transformative. For data center operators, the implication is clear: sustainability no longer has to come at the cost of performance, speed, or economics. By integrating Atoco’s technologies into their facilities, operators can address water scarcity, reduce emissions at the source, and even unlock new revenue streams from infrastructure they already run. The result is a foundation for a new generation of data centers that can grow in step with AI and global digitalization while contributing to, rather than detracting from, the planet’s long-term resilience.