- May 20, 2026
- By Chris Carroll
- Illustrations via Adobe Stock
DOOMSCROLLING, INFLUENCING, backing up to the cloud, having AI write that report for corporate—it’s all well and good until a data center springs up next door.
From Prince George’s County nooks to L.A.’s exurbs, America is having a reckoning with its Extremely Online status. Local residents and environmentalists are fighting to stop construction of these sprawling buildings that hold internet and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, fearful of noise, pollution and resource consumption: Large facilities can swallow millions of gallons of water daily and jack up regional electric rates.
Unless we all decide to swear off modern technology, data centers are likely to keep growing. With skill and innovation, though, their worst qualities can be tempered, says a group of researchers in UMD’s A. James Clark School of Engineering.
“We need data centers, but they’re not always good to live nearby,” says civil and environmental engineering (CEE) Professor Birthe Kjellerup. “One thing UMD can do is to be the place people can come to discuss these issues, and to solve them.”
Here are four solutions that she and colleagues are developing:
DE-GUNKIFY HEAT TRANSFER
Data center heat transfer systems use water for cooling, but water tends to grow microorganisms no matter what you do.
The result is biofilm buildup, an insulator that forces the systems to work harder and more wastefully than when they’re clean. Kjellerup’s research aims to reduce microbial growth and redirect biofilms to noncritical areas of the system.
SWEAT THE PROCESSOR COOLING
Taking inspiration from nature—how we sweat, to be precise—and then cranking that cooling potential to the limit, mechanical engineering Associate Professor and Clark Faculty Fellow Damena Agonafer has developed a two-phase evaporative cooling technology fit to chill high-powered AI processors. As a result, they’ll operate more efficiently and consume less electricity.
WASTE NOT, HEAT NOT
Inside the data center, heat from all those humming servers and AI processors hurts operations. Move it outside and it can be repurposed as green energy. Both Kjellerup and Agonafer are developing methods to harvest data centers’ wasted energy for heating other buildings and industrial processes.
MAKE THE GRADE
Leading an effort for the American Society of Civil Engineers, CEE Chair Nii O. Attoh-Okine is looking to create a data center “report card” to objectively measure performance “just like we do with tunnels, bridges and any other big infrastructure project,” he says. With standards for noise, water use, generator smoke and many other operational factors in place, he says, data centers might lose some of their bad reputation.
Issue
Spring 2026Types
Explorations