INTELLIGENT TECHNOLOGY: DATA CENTERS
HydraVault launches Chicago’ s first purpose-built downtown AI data center permitting up to 200kW per rack density
HydraVault is set to build Chicago’ s first downtown AI data center, a facility designed for high-performance computing. With unprecedented power delivery of up to 200kW per rack, the site will be optimized for demanding workloads including AI, Machine Learning and high-frequency trading. Construction begins in late 2025.
With AI workloads expected to grow 3.5 times by 2030 and projected to account for 70 % of total data center demand, facilities purpose-built for extreme density compute will be critical.
The new HydraVault facility, strategically located to serve the region’ s most demanding compute users, is designed to meet that need. Access for user buildout is anticipated in late 2026.
The data center will meet Tier 3 specifications, ensuring a high level of uptime and reliability with redundant systems. Its downtown location offers direct proximity to the city’ s primary fiber interconnects, delivering sub-millisecond latency to 350 East Cermak, a major hub for financial trading networks. The connectivity provides a rare edge advantage in one of the world’ s most connected markets, reducing deployment friction and operational costs for high-performance compute.
The facility is engineered to deliver up to 200kW per rack – well beyond the industry average of 15 – 20kW. With a total capacity of 20MW, it integrates advanced liquid cooling systems that are approximately 40 % more energy efficient than traditional air cooling. Combined with an industry-leading Power Usage Effectiveness( PUE) of 1.19, the design maximizes both performance and sustainability. A closed-loop, waterless cooling system optimizes heat rejection without wasting power.
“ Training, inferencing, financial services and medical research, among other industries, are accelerating faster than the infrastructure designed to support them,” said Scott D. Greenberg, Founder of HydraVault.“ We’ ve designed – and will build – a city centre AI factory for the future. The power density per square foot of building area in HydraVault, combined with the most advanced components demanded by the next generations of chip technology, makes HydraVault the definitive next-generation data center.”
The facility will be built to SOC 1 and SOC 2 compliance specifications and will be PCI ready. p
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