A modern ASIC converts 3,500+ watts into heat in a box the size of carry-on luggage. How you remove that heat defines your facility's density, costs and hardware lifespan.
The overwhelming majority of the world's miners are air-cooled: high-RPM fans pull ambient air across heatsinks. It's the cheapest infrastructure to build — racks, hot/cold aisle separation, big exhaust fans — and the easiest to maintain. The costs are noise (75+ dB per unit), dust, climate sensitivity, and a density ceiling: hot regions need substantial airflow engineering, and fan failures remain a leading repair category. Our Ethiopia facility runs air-cooled at altitude, where the cool climate of Addis Ababa works in our favor.
Hydro models (like the Antminer S21 XP Hyd) pump treated water through cold plates inside the miner itself. Heat goes straight into liquid — far denser than air, near-silent, and the machines tolerate sustained overclocking with factory support. The price: dedicated plumbing infrastructure, water-quality management, and hydro units that only run in hydro facilities. This is the direction large new US builds are taking, including the facilities targeted for our Batch 2.
Immersion cooling sinks standard (modified) miners into tanks of dielectric fluid. Density and silence rival hydro, dust is eliminated entirely, and component temperatures stabilize beautifully — boards in immersion routinely outlive air-cooled twins. Trade-offs: fluid cost, messy maintenance, warranty complications from removing fans, and tanks committing you to immersion forever. It shines in hot climates and container-based deployments.
Buying machines? Air-cooled units offer maximum flexibility — any facility takes them, including all four of ours. Hydro buys efficiency and density if your destination facility supports it. Building a farm? The cooling decision is the single biggest capex fork after power, and retrofitting between types is expensive enough to count as rebuilding. We advise on this in every farm sale and turnkey project we broker.