Omen AI, founded in 2024, has acquired competitor Aquatic Labs in a $16 million cash-and-stock transaction. The acquisition follows Omen’s $31 million Series A round raised in June. The goal is to merge complementary real-time water-sensing technologies to provide automated monitoring of cooling fluids used in data centers.
The problem and why it matters
U.S. data centers consume 17 to 19 billion gallons of water each year to cool high-power chips — a figure the Water Foundation expects could triple over the next five years. Such large-scale water use presents both cost and regulatory challenges for investors and operators expanding AI infrastructure.
Today, verifying the condition of cooling fluids typically requires taking samples and sending them to a lab for multi-day analysis. When microbial growth or valve failures threaten flow or equipment, operators often opt to dump and replace the fluid to avoid damaging expensive hardware, causing downtime and significant expense.
How the combined solution works
Both Omen AI and Aquatic Labs developed sensors that measure water properties in real time. Omen’s sensors focus on elements in the fluid, while Aquatic Labs’ device measures alkalinity. According to Allan Adams, CEO of Aquatic Labs, integrating both approaches into a single sensor produces a "much richer picture of the water and the fluid," and advances the automation of previously slow, manual testing.
Teams and timeline
The founders bring different backgrounds: Zach Laberge of Omen left high school to pursue his first company, which performed fluid analysis for heavy hydraulic construction equipment. Allan Adams trained as a physicist and worked as an MIT professor and a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution before founding Aquatic Labs. After the deal, Adams will serve as chief science officer of the combined company.
The merged team aims to integrate both sensing technologies into one product, which they expect to bring to market by early next year. Laberge said Omen’s initial sensors will monitor chip systems drawing 250 to 300 MW by the end of this year — capacity they estimate represents about $5 to $7 billion in market value — and that they hope to be installed on the equivalent of 1 GW of chips by the end of 2027.
Value for operators
Real-time monitoring improves uptime. When fluid systems deviate from safe parameters, operators frequently choose to dump the coolant to protect equipment, triggering shutdowns. Continuous sensing allows operators to extend the usable life of the same fluid, reducing replacement and cleanup costs as well as revenue losses from downtime.
Adams also noted potential applications beyond data centers: cooling water often returns to municipal systems, so measuring and managing that entire flow is important for safety and environmental responsibility.
Market outlook
While earlier estimates put AI infrastructure spending as high as $4 trillion by 2030, some investors have grown cautious recently and hyperscaler stocks have fallen. Omen’s leadership says their business is insulated from near-term shifts because they sell to facilities that are already being built or were financed around 12 months ago.
"We’re working with customers on things they are building today or have already built, so it doesn’t really affect us because all of those projects were financed 12 months ago," Laberge said. He added that even if the market tightens or is smaller than some forecasts, it would remain one of the largest markets in history.
Next steps
The immediate priority is integrating the two technologies and delivering a unified sensor to customers. The companies expect the combined system to reduce water waste and the costs associated with fluid-system failures in data centers.
