Omen AI buys Aquatic Labs for $16M to monitor data-center water in real time

Omen AI said on November 2 that it acquired rival Aquatic Labs in a $16 million cash-and-stock deal, uniting two startups working on the same problem: knowing, in real time, what is happening to the water that cools data-center chips.

The scale is significant. U.S. data centers use 17 to 19 billion gallons of water a year to cool hot-running chips, a figure expected to triple within five years, according to the Water Foundation. For investors pouring money into AI infrastructure, that water is both a cost line and a political issue.

The technologies fit together. Omen's sensor looks for elements in the water, while Aquatic Labs' device tests alkalinity; combining them in one sensor produces "a much richer picture of the water and the fluid," Aquatic Labs chief executive Allan Adams told TechCrunch.

The deal also pairs two kinds of founder. Omen was started in 2024 by Zach Laberge, a college dropout who previously built fluid analysis for heavy construction machinery, and raised a $31 million Series A in June. Adams is a physicist who taught at MIT and developed ocean sensing at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; he becomes chief science officer of the combined company, which was introduced by an investor in filtration.

The teams are integrating both technologies into a single sensor that they expect to bring to market early next year. Omen's sensors will be monitoring chips drawing 250 to 300 megawatts by the end of this year, worth about $5 billion to $7 billion, Laberge said, with a goal of covering the equivalent of 1 gigawatt by the end of 2027.

The value sits in uptime. When a fluid system drifts out of spec, operators typically dump the water rather than risk damaging expensive equipment, which means shutdowns and cleanup costs. Real-time monitoring lets them use the same fluid longer and cut both refills and discharge.

The deal lands amid a shift in sentiment around AI infrastructure. Companies once estimated that as much as $4 trillion would be spent by 2030, but some investors have grown skeptical and hyperscaler stocks have fallen. Laberge is unconcerned: Omen works on projects already under construction or built, and "all of those projects were financed 12 months ago."

What to watch is whether water-quality data gets wired into data-center operations software, how the sensors hold up over years in hot and humid plants, and whether tightening water rules turn real-time monitoring from an option into a standard feature of new campuses.