A 103-year-old company says it has a plan to make AI data centers ‘water-neutral’

In today’s CEO Daily: An interview with Ecolab CEO Christophe Beck

The big leadership story: Dow CEO Karen Carter leads the manufacturer into a new era.

The markets: Up globally as investors rediscover their AI optimism.

Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. We’re seeing pushback in the AI revolution. Some of that comes from concerns about the technology–more than 1,200 employees of the world’s leading AI labs signed a statement this week asking the U.S. government to help build tools to slow down development. Workers and even leaders are pushing policymakers to address the impact on jobs. And there’s the growing controversy around the energy costs and environmental impact of data centers, which continue to expand with U.S. demand projected to double between 2025 and 2027.

Christophe Beck, CEO of Ecolab (No. 280 on the Fortune 500) told me that he’s spent $7 billion in the last six months to address another problem: water usage, as a single facility can currently consume millions of gallons per day. Beck recently closed a $4.75 billion acquisition of Calgary liquid-cooling company CoolIT, and is making related investments around it to help expand Ecolab’s role in high-tech water usage.

It’s an interesting example of how established players can have a stake in an AI-driven future as the acquisition gives this 103-year-old company a deeper role in not just treating water but helping design how chips are cooled,........

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