One of the least talked about costs of the AI boom is water. Data centres run hot, and many of them cool down using huge amounts of fresh, drinkable water. A Sydney startup called Enaxiom thinks it can flip that.
The problem
Every AI data centre needs to get rid of heat. A common way to do that is evaporating water, and a lot of that water is the same clean supply that goes to homes. As more data centres get built in dry places, the fight over water only gets sharper.
The fix
Enaxiom’s system is called HydroCool. It handles heat rejection and works alongside direct-to-chip and immersion cooling. The key difference is that it runs on non-potable water, including wastewater, and recovers high-quality water as a by-product. So instead of draining drinking water, it can hand some back.
The proof
The company says it is a patented system built on a decade of research. A 40kW pilot proved the technology works, and it is now building modular systems at commercial scale.
The round
Enaxiom raised a seed round reported at US$1.8M, led by Epic Angels, the Singapore-based all-female investor collective, with BlackNova and Antler. That takes total funding to US$2.7M. The money goes to commercial deployment, hiring and US expansion. The company was founded in Sydney in 2023 and is led by CEO Tia Collings.
My read
As the tech giants race to build data centres, power gets the headlines but water is the quieter fight. A small Sydney team might have one of the smarter answers. The next step is proving it outside a 40kW pilot.