H.R. 5332 — Liquid Cooling for AI Act of 2025

This section states congressional findings on data centers' rising U.S. electricity consumption—from 4.4% in 2023 (up from 1.9% in 2018) to a projected 6.7%-12.8% by 2028 due to AI and cloud computing growth—the limitations of traditional air cooling for high-density AI servers, the thermal and efficiency benefits of liquid-cooling technologies (e.g., direct-to-chip and immersion cooling), the need for interoperable components and heat-reuse interfaces, and the importance of an independent assessment to guide federal AI deployments.

This section directs the Comptroller General of the United States (GAO) to initiate, not later than 30 days after enactment, a review of research and development needs and market, technological, and regulatory conditions affecting liquid cooling utilization by data centers. The review must evaluate (1) research and development needs, costs, and benefits for high-performance computing; (2) avoided energy costs, including deferred transmission and infrastructure upgrades; (3) increased compute capacity; (4) effects on computing performance, resiliency, and cybersecurity; (5) market trends and adoption rates over the past five years; (6) comparisons of direct-to-chip and immersion cooling across density bands for thermal performance, maintainability, interoperability, safety, failure modes, and lifecycle costs; (7) coolant options and related management; (8) whether liquid cooling should be prioritized over air cooling; (9) reference architectures for liquid distribution; (10) waste heat reuse opportunities; and (11) failure scenarios and mitigations. GAO must include recommendations on federal utilization and research, best practices and standards, security and resilience enhancements, and education acceleration; consult stakeholders from government, private sector, academia, and National Laboratories; and jointly designate with the Secretary of Energy a liquid cooling industry organization for coordination. GAO must submit a report with results, findings, and recommendations to the Secretary of Energy and appropriate congressional committees (Committee on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate; Committees on Science, Space, and Technology and Energy and Commerce of the House) not later than 90 days after enactment. Not later than 180 days after receiving the report, the Secretary must evaluate it and submit to the committees an assessment with (1) congressional considerations on liquid cooling's role in U.S. global AI leadership and (2) research and development recommendations for liquid cooling and heat reuse.