Omen AI buys Aquatic Labs for $16 million to track data center coolant
The San Francisco startup adds real-time alkalinity sensing to its fluid monitoring tools for AI data centers.
The 30-second read
- Omen AI announced on Nov. 2, 2026 that it has acquired Aquatic Labs for $16 million, paid in cash and stock.
- Aquatic Labs founder Allan Adams becomes chief science officer at Omen AI and will lead R&D.
- Reports differ on timing: one says products with added monitoring by year-end 2026, another says a single combined sensor early next year.
IllustrationOmen AI announced on Nov. 2, 2026 that it has acquired Aquatic Labs. The price is $16 million, paid in cash and stock. Omen AI was founded in 2024 and is based in San Francisco. It makes sensors that watch the cooling fluids in AI data centers all the time, so operators do not rely on lab tests. Zach Laberge is the founder and CEO of Omen AI. Allan Adams, the founder of Aquatic Labs, joins as chief science officer and will lead R&D. Adams was earlier a physics professor at MIT and a visiting oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Aquatic Labs measures total alkalinity in real time and adds no chemicals to do it. This complements Omen's elemental analysis and biological monitoring. Omen's Sentry 1.2 sensor already reads pH, total alkalinity, glycol concentration, conductivity, temperature and pressure through a parallel bypass. Adams spoke of a "much richer picture of the water and the fluid", first reported by TechCrunch. Laberge said that automating treatment first requires enough information about what is going on in the fluid. Adams said: "Understanding both the chemistry and the biology is a formidable technical challenge".
The launch timing differs by source. Unite.AI and PR Newswire say products with added monitoring will arrive by year-end 2026. TechCrunch says a single combined sensor will be on the market by early next year. The long-term goal is automated treatment that adjusts coolant chemistry within approved limits. Operators often throw away fluid rather than risk damaging equipment, which forces costly shutdowns. Monitoring lets them reuse fluid for longer.
Omen has raised $46 million in total, including a $31 million Series A in June 2026 led by Nava Ventures. TechCrunch first reported that Omen aims to have sensors covering 250 to 300 MW of chips by end of year and 1 GW by end of 2027. It also first reported a figure from The Water Foundation: data centers in the US consume between 17 and 19 billion gallons of water a year, a level expected to triple in five years.
Why it matters
AI data centers need constant cooling, and bad coolant means wasted fluid and downtime. Better real-time sensing is one way operators can cut that cost as AI capacity grows.
