Why We Should Move AI Data Centers Into Space

[Zkuq]

HoloDust said:

Zkuq said:

I thought we were utilizing district heating to move the heat rather than underground data centers, but admittedly I haven't been following the news that closely. Still, I don't remember seeing any news about underground data centers - it's always above the ground, and we seem to have a lot of news about new data centers these days.

Well, this is what quick query gave me:

- The Cathedral Bomb Shelter (Helsinki)

One of the earliest and most famous examples is located directly beneath Helsinki's historic 19th-century Uspenski Cathedral. Deep in the granite underneath the church sits a former WWII bomb shelter that was converted into an underground data center. The energy company Helen captures the server heat, boosts it, and distributes it to heat roughly 500 nearby homes.

- The Mäntsälä Cave Facility

In the town of Mäntsälä, a large data center built into a former underground cave/quarry recovers tens of thousands of megawatt-hours of energy annually. The system captures enough excess thermal energy to supply more than two-thirds of the entire town's heating demand, drastically lowering local energy costs and eliminating the need to burn fossil fuels for winter warmth.

- Fortum

Microsoft built a massive data center region in the capital area where the waste heat is recycled into the Fortum utility network. It is designed to cover roughly 40% of the district heating needs for the major neighboring cities of Espoo and Kirkkonummi, cleanly warming around 250,000 users.

- Hamina

Google’s Hamina data center campus routes its computational thermal runoff into the local grid, providing up to 80% of Hamina's annual district heating demand

I find it really clever use of heat that is byproduct of data centers. Of course, as someone who actually lives there, you are certainly privy to much more info about ins and outs of all of it. 

Interesting, thanks for letting me know! The first two definitely sound underground, the latter two not. The one in Hamina has been there for a while now, and there have been some expansions - all above ground, most likely. The one done in cooperation between Microsoft and Fortum also sounds like it won't be underground, but it sounds like it's been designed for heat distribution from the start. Regardless, those underground facilities sound neat too!

And yeah, utilizing the excess heat is very nice. I recall reading that data centers don't suffice for heating a ton of buildings, but it's definitely better than wasting all that heat, and the more data centers we get, the more buildings they will probably end up providing heat for.