ChemSec: Daikin, Arkema, Chemours expand PFAS for AI data center cooling

The report places the AI buildout inside a supply chain most readers never see: the industrial chemicals used to move heat out of server racks. ChemSec's finding is not that PFAS are new — they have long been used in food packaging, stain-resistant sprays and firefighting foam — but that AI infrastructure has added a large new source of demand, prompting the biggest producers to add capacity. Daikin's plan to triple its PFAS capacity in response to semiconductor demand, and Arkema's expansion in North America and in Asia, suggest the industry expects that demand to persist.

The article frames this as a trade-off against water use. Newer cooling systems use fluorinated chemicals instead of water, which addresses one criticism of data centers while raising another. ChemSec's earlier 2023 analysis put the world's biggest PFAS makers at roughly $4 billion in profit in 2022 against an estimated $17.5 trillion a year in societal costs such as healthcare, cleanup and contaminated water.

What happens next likely hinges on regulation and litigation. The July letter from 17 environmental organizations asking the EPA to reject a fast-track application for Opteon 2P50, and the January lawsuit by 192 French citizens and four environmental organizations against Arkema and Daikin, are the two concrete pressure points named in the article. Chemours has denied the concerns, saying its system operates as a closed loop, while Daikin says it has accelerated investments since 2022 to better control PFAS emissions — so the outcome may turn on whether regulators accept those defenses or the courts find them insufficient.