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? Climate experts are skeptical that consumption is the most sustainable solution.
What is certain is that our electricity demands are growing. According to a forecast by the International Energy Agency (IEA), “after globally consuming an estimated 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2022, data centers’ total electricity consumption could reach more than 1,000 TWh in 2026.” This nearly 120% increase “is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan,” the report continues.
Consuming enough additional energy to power an island nation will have an adverse effect on our climate. In Hamina, a seaside town in Finland with a population of 20,000, Google is exploring a more renewable solution for its data center. Here, Google pumps in sea water from the adjacent harbor to cool the data center’s servers. The subsequently warmed water is collected in pipes and its recovered heat is donated to both Google’s nearby offices and the local energy company. Through this process, 80% of the homes in this Finnish district are now warmed by the Google data center’s thermal output. Using on-site wind and solar energy farms, this data center has been operating on 97% carbon-free electricity since 2022.
Elsewhere in Finland’s Satakunta region, cryptocurrency mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings is using a similar heat recovery strategy to sell its excess as passive energy for some of the area’s 11,000 residents. And 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 commits this excess energy to its Seine-Saint-Denis suburb going forward—and free-of-charge for the first 15 years.
Whether free or for a fee, heat recovery from data centers, crypto mining operations, or supercomputers can be utilized to form a symbiotic relationship with its local community. It can also be used to offset commercial heating needs. Bathhouse, a luxury spa with facilities in Brooklyn and Manhattan that was designed by the AD100 2025 Hall of Fame firm, the Rockwell Group, is using energy from its Bitcoin mining process to heat its thermal guest pools (all while earning, on average, one Bitcoin per year, currently equivalent to nearly $100,000 as of the time of publication).
When it comes to the ecological benefits these heat recovery methods claim, changes on the larger scale make the most impact. But without embracing renewable energy sources upfront to do the facilities’ data processing, some climate experts argue that recycling their reject heating for residential or community use doesn’t go far enough to mitigate the climate harm these centers’ energy requirements cause.
Other data centers might not have the resources to do so. “While some of the most advanced, ‘hyperscale’ data centers, like those maintained by Google, Facebook, and Amazon, have pledged to transition their sites to carbon-neutral via carbon offsetting and investment in renewable energy infrastructures like wind and solar, many of the smaller-scale data centers that I observed lack the resources and capital to pursue similar sustainability initiatives,” writes anthropologist Steven Gonzalez Monserrate.
At the moment, the United States hosts the most—and soon the world’s biggest—supercomputers; China runs a close second. The US is also home to a third of the globe’s data centers, followed by Europe at 16%, and China at nearly 10%. The IEA predicts that 2% of all global electricity usage will be consumed by such centers in 2026; the majority of that electricity will be sourced through traditional fossil fuel methods, releasing even more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere per annum. Cryptocurrency mining, supercomputers, and data centers are also great consumers of other natural resources, including drinking water, which is favored for its lack of microorganisms, says Gonzalez Monserrate, and used for necessary continuous cooling. Because many of these physical server farms are located in arid states to protect the electronics from moisture, this can exacerbate already difficult droughts or fresh water accessibility for residents.
No matter how household AI, cryptocurrency, or other processing needs become, data centers—and their promised economic or ecological community benefits—are ephemeral. “A data center life is between 5 and 20 years,” says Gonzalez Monserrate. “This is not a permanent industry. It is extractive, like mines.” Passive heating for nearby residences is an effective use of a data center’s waste product, but it might not a perennial solution to counteract its industry’s contributions to global warming.
