Shumate Engineering Presents Breakthrough Hybrid Dry Adiabatic Cooling Design, Passes Key Benchmark

June 03, 2025 at 16:01 PM EDT

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In a major breakthrough for the data center industry, Shumate Engineering, a leading full-service MEP engineering firm specializing in mission-critical data center environments, has launched its new cooling design, which is proven to significantly reduce power and water consumption.

Hybrid-Dry/Adiabatic-Cooling (HDAC), a patent-pending design, was presented last month at AFCOM’s Data Center World conference in Washington, D.C., to hundreds of industry insiders who agreed with the system. HDAC utilizes both wet and dry cooling techniques within a closed loop, has the potential to disrupt the sector – just as its grappling with the proliferation of artificial intelligence.

“With the need for massive computing power taking hold around the world, the data center industry is booming right now; however, the power and water needed to cool the racks and keep them functioning has limited its progress,” said Daren Shumate, PE, founder and managing principal of Tysons, Va.-based Shumate Engineering. “Major data center projects backed by the biggest names in tech have resorted to drastic measures to meet this demand, including the construction of high-density data centers that span city blocks and recommissioning nuclear power plants, but our cooling design manages to use half of the power and less than 10 percent of the water compared to traditional data centers – offering a massive savings of natural resources and billions of dollars in costs.”

This hybrid-dry adiabatic (HDAC) design was presented by Shumate and R. Stephen Spinazzola, PE, director of mission critical services at Shumate Engineering at the AFCOM conference. They explained how to get power usage effectiveness (PUE) for a hyperscale data center in the mid-Atlantic region – typically higher than 1.2 – down to a range between 1.1 to 1.06 PUE, depending on the ratio of traditional air cooled versus direct liquid cooled equipment.

They followed up the presentation with a successful test at Baltimore Aircoil Company's testing facility where the system met all specific design requirements, including:

Maintaining 68 deg F fluid supply temp up to 60 deg F ambient dry bulb
Maintaining 90 deg F fluid supply temp up to 82 deg F ambient dry bulb
Maintaining 90 deg F fluid supply temp up to 81 deg F ambient wet bulb

“We are incredibly pleased with the performance of our HDAC design,” said Spinazzola, the creator of the design who already has six patents in his name. “This test verifies our claim that this system uses approximately the same water an air-cooled chiller system uses when combining on site and electrical power plant water use.”

The timing couldn’t be more relevant. As global demand for high-performance data centers surges — driven largely by the exponential growth of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing — cooling infrastructure has become a critical bottleneck. Shumate Engineering's groundbreaking solution addresses both the energy and environmental challenges associated with traditional evaporative and mechanical cooling methods.

“Our new hybrid system is a game-changer,” Shumate said. “By dramatically reducing both energy and water consumption, we're enabling data center operators to scale up AI and high-density workloads sustainably and cost-effectively. It’s an engineering solution that meets the moment.”

Unlike conventional systems that rely heavily on water-based evaporative cooling, Shumate Engineering’s HDAC design combines advanced dry cooling principles with prescribed adiabatic enhancements, optimizing thermal performance without compromising environmental responsibility. The result is a scalable, modular system that not only meets the intense thermal demands of AI-driven computing but also reduces operational costs and environmental footprint — a critical consideration as data centers face growing scrutiny over resource usage.

“Considering that a typical ChatGPT query used 10 times more power than the average Google search, the future of computing demands a future-ready infrastructure,” Spinazzola said. “Our HDAC system keeps pace with technological advancements while meeting aggressive sustainability goals – cutting power usage in half and using just a sip of water."

About Shumate Engineering

Shumate Engineering is a full-service MEP engineering firm specializing in mission critical, data center environments. Its ever-growing roster of engineers have collaborated on many projects — from the namesakes of northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley” and the rapidly growing DMV housing market to new prospects in Richmond and beyond. The team’s game-changing Hybrid Adiabatic Fluid Cooler - which uses half as much power and 90 percent less water than traditional cooling systems for AI data centers - is set to be approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this summer. Learn more at shumateengineering.com.

Daren Shumate, Founder and Managing Principal of Shumate Engineering, boasts many accomplishments in data center design including is an engineering icon the Smithsonian Institution’s main data center in Herndon, eBay’s chief 26-megawatt Tier E structure in Utah, the NSA’s High Performance Computing Center in Ft. Meade, and the Fannie Mae-owned data center in Urbana that was the first of its kind to attain LEED. He is a licensed electrical engineer in more than 20 states and lives in the Washington, D.C. area.

Steve Spinazzola, Director of Mission Critical Services for Shumate Engineering, offers more than 42 years of experience in both mechanical design and project management on corporate, mission-critical, educational, health and science, retail, and institutional projects. His game-changing Hybrid Adiabatic Fluid Cooler - which uses half as much power and 90 percent less water than traditional adiabatic cooling - is set to be approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office this summer.

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