Bechtel and Nautilus partner to build sustainable, high-performance data centers

Partnership will help meet global data center needs with energy-efficient and water-conserving facilities

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Jun 02, 2021, 15:20 ET

RESTON, Va., June 2, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Bechtel and Nautilus Data Technologies are partnering to build data centers which use 70% less power for cooling and eliminate the consumption of drinking water. The partnership will help to transform the environmental footprint of the data center sector and to close the digital divide by deploying to cities, rural communities and developing economies around the world.

Image of the internal part of a data center.

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"Data centers support critical aspects of local, regional and international economic development. As demand for these facilities continues to grow, so does the demand for the resources necessary to power and cool them. Our partnership with Nautilus provides a much more environmentally sustainable solution that means we can help our customers meet soaring digital needs responsibly," said Peter Nelson, Director of Infrastructure Development at Bechtel Enterprises, the project development and financing arm of Bechtel.

Nautilus' data centers enable and support the energy-intensive, high-performance servers needed for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications that are increasingly critical in smart city, smart transportation, smart grid, telemedicine, public health and security solutions.

Nautilus' Total Resource Usage Effectiveness (TRUE™) technology, is a patented closed-loop water cooling system that uses naturally cold water to keep server racks cool. TRUE™ consists of a state-of-art combination of maritime and industrial cooling methods that use 70% less power than traditional computer room air-conditioning uses for cooling, leading to a 30+% net reduction in energy-related CO2 and air pollution. The system uses naturally cold water from rivers, lakes or bays and returns all of it to its source after use. This is a dramatic improvement over the massive amounts of water—typically drinking water—consumed by the evaporative cooling systems currently used by data centers. The system delivers additional environmental improvements including no refrigerants, no chemicals, no wastewater, no noise, and no harm to fish and wildlife.

"We are looking forward to working with the Bechtel team to transform the data center sector on a global scale," said James Connaughton, CEO of Nautilus. "Through this partnership, we will deliver sustainable, high-performance data center infrastructure and bring modern digital services to people around the world who need it most."

The duo combined has more than 100 years of experience in infrastructure development and delivery for operators across the US, UK, Europe, Middle East & Asia Pacific regions.

About Bechtel

Bechtel is a trusted engineering, construction and project management partner to industry and government. Differentiated by the quality of our people and our relentless drive to deliver the most successful outcomes, we align our capabilities to our customers' objectives to create a lasting positive impact. Since 1898, we have helped customers complete more than 25,000 projects in 160 countries on all seven continents that have created jobs, grown economies, improved the resiliency of the world's infrastructure, increased access to energy, resources, and vital services, and made the world a safer, cleaner place.

Bechtel serves the Energy; Infrastructure; Nuclear, Security & Environmental; and Mining & Metals markets. Our services span from initial planning and investment, through start-up and operations. www.bechtel.com

About Nautilus

Nautilus Data Technologies has created the world's most environmentally innovative, water-cooled data center infrastructure, setting new high-performance, efficiency, sustainability, and global scalability standards. Nautilus' patented TRUE™ ("Total Resource Usage Effectiveness") cooling system integrates proven maritime and industrial water-cooling technologies with next generation data center infrastructure to mark a new era of performance for the data center industry. TRUE™ reduces energy costs, eliminates water consumption, produces no wastewater, uses no harmful refrigerants or wastewater treatment chemicals, and lowers air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. TRUE™ further enables the widespread availability of high-performance computing for artificial intelligence and machine learning-based applications for remote education, telemedicine, telework, smart city, smart grid, smart transportation, gaming, and other valuable compute-intensive applications, accelerating global access to the substantial economic, social, and environmental benefits they provide. www.nautilusdt.com

Media contact:

Juliet Whitcombe
T : +44 (0)7917 722304
[email protected]

SOURCE Bechtel