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Equation 6 · Part 2 · AI Datacenter Power and Cooling: A First-Principles Introduction

fraction

WUE=Annual Site Water UsageIT Equipment Energy,\mathrm{WUE} = \frac{\text{Annual Site Water Usage}}{\text{IT Equipment Energy}},
fraction

What this part means

Divide the expression above the line by the one below it.

Its job in the formula

The expression above the fraction bar is divided by the complete expression below it. The denominator must not be zero.

The passage around this formula

Water usage effectiveness fills that second gap, introduced by the same organization a few years before this decade’s AI buildout made it urgent: WUE=Annual Site Water UsageIT Equipment Energy\mathrm{WUE} = \frac{\text{Annual Site Water Usage}}{\text{IT Equipment Energy}}. reported in litres per kilowatt-hour and deliberately built to use “the same value… as the denominator for this new metric” as PUE, “to both ensure the metrics stay linked and speed their adoption” [ 6 ] . WUE exists because the cheapest way to reject a given amount of heat is very often evaporative — cooling towers and adiabatic assistance work against the wet-bulb temperature rather than the dry-bulb temperature, so they can reach a lower effective cooling temperature for less fan and compressor energy than a fully dry system…

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Learn the underlying idea

A fraction a/b means a divided by b. The top number is the numerator; the bottom number is the denominator, and it cannot be zero.

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Sources cited in the surrounding passage

These citations provide research context; check each source for the exact claim it supports.