Architectural Digest
Summary
Though it may currently seem easy to opt-out of day-to-day interaction with artificial intelligence, the expected growth of its demand is already increasing real-life infrastructure. Data centers and supercomputers are being constructed across the globe to support our world becoming more computer-processed, including actions that range from an AI-automated Google search to NASA’s planetary rover modeling to cryptocurrency Bitcoin mining. These powerful machines need electricity both to function and to keep them continuously cool. Heat is a natural byproduct of their energy-intensive processes.
Some companies are finding creative solutions to make sure that excess thermal energy doesn’t go to waste by funneling it into passive heating for residences and businesses alike. Could this data center output be the key to more environmentally-friendly homes?
In Paris, the recently built Olympic Aquatics Center pool is currently being warmed with the byproduct heat produced by a nearby data center owned by American company Equinix. Its partnership with a local utility company, ENGIE, commits this excess energy to its Seine-Saint-Denis suburb going forward—and free-of-charge for the first 15 years.
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