Aligned plans to construct a waterless data center before the end of the year that will use its proprietary cooling technology and a $1.25 billion senior secured credit facility. 

The waterless data center, dubbed SLC-04, will be built in Salt Lake City, partially drawing on the cold desert climate of the area to help cool the facility. It will also use Aligned’s Delta3 cooling technology to remove heat as it is produced, the company's CFO Anubhav Raj told SDxCentral in an interview.

Aligned notes that Delta3 uses 80% less energy and 85% less water than standard cooling techniques. It can function in any altitude or climate while allowing customers to scale in place up to 50 kilowatts (kW) per rack without stranding capacity. 

This cooling tech is “central to how and why our data centers are more efficient than some other data centers that are out there,” Raj said. 

Traditional data center models push cold air throughout the building to decrease the ambient temperature, resulting in high levels of energy consumption. And if this model uses non-renewable energy it creates additional greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

“In addition to speed and scale, the [cooling technology] development also satisfies our customers’ requirement for water conservation while still delivering industry-leading power usage effectiveness (PUE),” Aligned CEO Andrew Schaap said.

The data center provider is also making waves with how it's funding the new data center. Aligned received $1 billion last September and another $250 million last month to “continue our development across our platform,” Raj said. This includes the development and construction of SLC-04 as well as continued work on its other data center campuses. 

Part of this funding comes from a sustainability-linked loan, which Aligned says is the first of its kind in the U.S. The loan’s interest rate fluctuates based on three key performance indicators (KPIs) ‒‒ renewable energy, transparent sustainability reporting, and workplace safety ‒‒ providing Aligned with financial motivation to perform well in those areas.

Another portion of Aligned’s $1.25 billion in funding comes from its construction of data center campuses following the Green Bond Principles (GBP), which are voluntary best practice guidelines established in 2014 by a number of investment banks. All seven of Aligned’s U.S. campuses meet the criteria laid out in the GBP, resulting in funding for each of those locations.

“That's really where the bulk of our dollars are going. We're seeing a lot of demand from our end customers, and we're continuing to add additional phases,” Raj said. A portion of the funding will also go toward refinancing any prior debt, Raj added.

As customers have increasingly more voice in vendor selection, vendors’ decisions “in terms of their sustainability approach [to] building these data centers” will continue to grow in importance, Raj said. 

In that context, Aligned recognizes there is “an ethical imperative” to continuously innovate and find the next way to improve efficiency and sustainability. “That’s part of the company’s DNA,” Raj said.