Canadian cooling startup Wafr Technologies claims to have raised $100 million to help fund the development of its water-efficient chilling system for AI data centers.The company’s CEO and co-founder Darrell Kopke told Financial Post that the company had bagged the investment from a group of unnamed backers.Kopke’s company hopes to raise a further $200 million in the near future, from government funds and private investors, to help commercialize its technology.Describing AI data centers as a “crazy, massive market,” Kopke told the Post that Wafr’s technology could cut down the amount of water used in data centers. “Our technology virtually eliminates the need for water and stops evaporative water for cooling,” he said.Based in Vancouver, Wafr was founded last year and plans to operate its own data centers, as well as sell cooling systems. It has yet to announce any sites of its own.Few details of the cooling system, said to use a proprietary, passive, cooling technology, have been revealed, but the Financial Post article said it uses a thermal battery. This type of battery typically contains a material that can absorb heat and contain it for release at a later stage. A diagram on the company's site shows a battery capable of taking heat from the grid at times when usage - and therefore electricity costs - are low, and store it for use when cooling is required in peak hours.Kopke said the company has already signed letters of intent with prospective partners looking to build data centers in North America and beyond. Wafr is targeting the US and European markets such as Germany, he told the Financial Post.“The US has 5,300 data centers,” Kopke said. “The country that has the next highest amount of declared data centers is Germany at 400. It would be impossible for us to ignore the US. It is also the market that has the least sustainable AI, and that’s something we can fix.”