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A recent article published in challenges some of the widespread assumptions around data centers. Instead of data centers being an inevitable drain on the communities that host them, with careful design, there are opportunities for more sustainable, and possibly positive, outcomes of hosting a data center. Written by two RASEI Fellows, Gregor Henze and Sean Shaheen, the article argues that with thoughtful design and operation, data centers can actually become local energy assets, providing resilience during outages, and even heating local homes.Ìý

The authors, Gregor Henze (Professor of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering) and Sean Shaheen (Professor of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering), draw directly on some of their own research areas to build this case. Their work explores aspects of how data centers could be more sustainably integrated into local energy systems in ways that benefit surrounding neighborhoods. It also explores some future directions that are built on developing new, more energy efficient, computational methods, that could reduce the energy required for equivalent levels of computation.Ìý

The piece outlines four main pathways; power management, integration of large battery storage, collection and use of waste heat for district heating systems, and unconventional computing.Ìý

Combining these different research perspectives provides an argument that suggests the combining on-site power generation and storage, and waste heat reuse could allow a data center to function as a kind of neighborhood energy hub, one that could provide heat and backup electricity to nearby residents while still serving its core computational function.Ìý

The piece was published in , and has since been widely republished.Ìý