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Is it feasible to do this at smaller scales? Would be cool to use my compurers to heat water at home. Put all that useless heat to good use. Air conditioners could do it too, right? Pump heat into a water reservoir instead of just throwing it away?
Some heat pumps do this. E.g. Panasonic Aquarea EcoFleX. When cooling the house, the domestic hot water tank is used to dump heat into (up to a certain temperature).
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I feel like this is one of those things that sounds good, but it's not. It's probably cheaper to build it far away from residential areas, and it's probably better for the people living there to not live too close to a data center.
Why, is there some hidden downside to living by a data center? Northern VA real estate is super pricey but they’ve got tons of them
Data centers were, and still can be, some of the cleanest industrial facilities - but the ones being built in this AI wave are not, because they are being built as cheaply and as quickly as possible and without regards to proper infrastructure.
Something I have been wondering: Why don't data centres use the excess heat for a sort of energy recuperation, turning at least some of it back into electricity?
Landauer's principle says that even if we could build computers to work at those temperatures, they'd need more power anyway.
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This is mostly just due to how nonprofits work. If you have excess revenue, you can’t return it to shareholders so you might as well spend it on mission-oriented activities.
You can, and should, keep it in case you have less revenue next year though.
All data centers that are in controversial areas should offer free heated swimming pools for the neighborhood. You could add a giant pool complex as a percentage or two of the cost of a big data center.
free hot tub
free publicity and good will gathered
("free")
> The heat generated by a washing-machine-sized data centre is being used to heat a Devon public swimming pool. You mean server.
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I have a pool heater and an air conditioner, and I'm running both at the same time. They're fifty feet apart, but this thought crosses my mind constantly.
This does exist btw. It's a stainless steel coil that you can put on your A/C and then run water from your pool over it to heat the pool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7fB8ul9dZw
https://www.hotspotenergy.com/titanium-pool-heat-exchangers/
> The data center delivers up to 1.7 MW of reusable heat – enough enough to warm 6,000 energy-efficient homes in winter or provide 20,000 five-minute showers every day in summer.
https://blog.siemens.com/2026/05/sustainable-data-infomaniak...
https://news.infomaniak.com/en/infomaniak-inaugurates-a-revo...
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I feel like this is one of those things that sounds good, but it's not. It's probably cheaper to build it far away from residential areas, and it's probably better for the people living there to not live too close to a data center.
why must we tear up undeveloped areas for data centers instead of backfilling vacant industrial areas? Humanity will never rest until all of the world is a brownfield
Rural land is cheap and there are fewer neighbors to annoy with the 24/7 construction activity.
Is it feasible to do this at smaller scales? Would be cool to use my compurers to heat water at home. Put all that useless heat to good use. Air conditioners could do it too, right? Pump heat into a water reservoir instead of just throwing it away?
(I work there)