An intelligent sea water cooling system including a first fluid cooling loop coupled to a first side of a heat exchanger and to a thermal load, a second fluid cooling loop coupled to a second side of the heat exchanger, a pump for circulating fluid through the second fluid cooling loop, and a controller connected to the pump. The controller may monitor a temperature in the first fluid cooling loop and may adjust a speed of the pump to keep the temperature within a preferred operating range. If the speed of the pump is reduced to a predefined minimum pressure pump speed, the controller may start a timer t1 having a predefined duration. If the timer t1 expires and the temperature has not increased relative to when the timer t1 was started, the controller may reduce the speed of the pump below the minimum pressure pump speed.