AI’s Thirst: Cooling Data Centers Without Draining Communities
Honorable Mention
2026 High School Winners
Energy
Anie Udofia
William Aberhart High School, Calgary, AB, Canada
Anie Udofia is a 10th-grader at William Aberhart High School in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, who is passionate about global human challenges and emerging digital technologies. Anie discovered the contest through a Google search and decided to submit a video to show the intersections among energy, AI, and sustainability. Anie was aware that increasing human population growth places a greater strain on energy systems and natural resources. However, she was surprised to learn about the “hidden environmental costs behind digital technologies and how large of a footprint data centers have – in particular, they use up to 5 million gallons of water to cool every day!” This made Anie curious about sustainable data center cooling systems, and she stumbled upon liquid immersion cooling used in South Korea, which uses little to no water.
To share her story, Anie combined Canva graphics to create her images and edited the video in CapCut. She decided to add daunting music to emphasize the importance of the issue. Her favorite part of the video-making process was researching and exploring all the sustainable solutions offered for AI data centers.
Outside of the contest, Anie has developed her own youth initiative called DetectED which educates youth on early disease detection with the help of AI machine learning and coding. She hopes to continue raising awareness about AI and its sustainability through her DetectED website and by making educational YouTube videos. Anie is not new to the video-making contest world: she won 1st place in the Alberta Champions Multimedia Contest, was a finalist for the Breakthrough Junior Challenge, and recently submitted a video for Energy Creates.
In her spare time, Anie loves to draw, make art, and write. She also plays the clarinet and joined the Alberta Wind Symphony. Her future goals are to major in biomedical engineering and to work at a company that develops early disease detection tools. She would also like to write a children’s book about her work with DetectED.
