The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is driving demand for data centers, which emit large amounts of heat, one example of which is the use of excess heat from the Paris Summer Olympics.
A data center owned by American company Equinix is using excess heat generated by the facility’s many servers to help keep the swimming pool at the nearby Paris Olympic Aquatics Center warm for athletes.
AI data centers consume large amounts of energy to power vast numbers of servers whose data is used to train the large-scale language models (LLMs) that inform AI applications like ChatGPT. Cooling these servers, which can heat up to over 80 degrees Fahrenheit, is done using fans and liquid cooling systems.
The Equinix data center, called PA10, will open in 2023 on the company’s campus in Saint-Denis, France, and is designed for high-density server configurations that can train AI models and take advantage of the company’s thermal exporting technology.
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The company told Wired that when the building is at full capacity, it is expected to emit 6.6 megawatts of heat, enough to power more than 1,000 homes.
To help heat the Olympic Aquatics Center’s swimming pool, Equinix worked with French utility company Engie to export excess heat generated by the data center and send it to Engie’s energy system.
From there, the heat is pumped to the aquatics center to heat the pool as well as provide heating for about 600 nearby homes and nearby businesses.
Ticker Securities Last Change Percentage Change EQIX EQUINIX INC. 818.88 +9.40 +1.16%
The setup also benefits Equinix, which can vent excess heat and reduce the energy needed to run its massive cooling systems. Equinix has also built greenhouses on the roofs of its data centers to grow strawberries, tomatoes, and other plants using the heat emitted by the facilities.
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Equinix’s head of heat export, Noah Nkongé, said in a post on the company’s website that Paris’ PA10 data center will “transport excess heat to the surrounding area and the Plaine Saulnier urban development, which includes the Olympic swimming pool, free of charge for 15 years.”
Equinix has been using heat export technology for more than a decade, launching the world’s first heat export project at its Helsinki facility in 2010 to help heat nearby homes.
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The company also has a heat export project at its Toronto facility that provides hot water to several buildings as well as heat to homes, hotels, hospitals and shopping centres.
Nkonge wrote that Equinix is designing all future colocation data centers to have heat export and recovery capabilities, and is exploring new opportunities to expand its heat export program to other cities and countries.
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