The AI race is not slowing down, anyone who lags behind can suffer not only economically, but also defensively. But this international vibe A series of risks are involved That currently dominates the main debate around AI: security and the data center.
In addition to the complexity of ensuring controlled and aligned AI development, its momentum is associated with data center construction. Huge facilities that use energy and water and that have turned the population against companies and governments.
The Spanish government prepares a regulation About the installation of these centers in the Spanish region. The bill’s terms have not gone down well with companies and employers in the sector, who describe it as impossible to comply with and complain that Spain’s data centers “practically don’t use water.”
The debate is not only Spanish, but all of Europe faces the complexity of investing in this new industry to stop depending on AI from the United States or China, but without jeopardizing the environmental commitment that characterizes the continent or skyrocketing electricity prices.
Save the heat
From this need, renewable energy and innovations such as heat storage for later reuse emerge as a solution. Thus, Lehigh researchers developed a Thermal battery with its storage capacity 150 kWh.
One of the key features of this new innovation is Withstands temperatures up to 500°c During thermal storage operation. Thus, it can help data centers reuse heat extracted from computing equipment.
The proposal seeks to reduce the energy wasted while expelling the heat of thousands of tirelessly working processors outside the cooling system.
For those unfamiliar with this debate, data centers are essentially large buildings full of computers performing mathematical calculations. They were the foundations that kept the internet going and still are AI is the engine of development.
The problem is that virtually all the electricity used by a server is converted to heat. If this heat is not removed, the temperature of the components increases and can cause malfunction, failure or damage to the equipment.
Heat it up
In addition to spending more energy to dissipate that heat, some installations use Evaporative cooling towerwhich dissipates heat through evaporation of water. This double cost is the main criticism facing these facilities.
Others use Air cooling systemFluid circuits or combinations of different technologies. What’s more, some are considering reusing that heat as a heating system for nearby homes. Even China decided to submerge them in the sea.
Some data centers already transfer heat to buildings or heating networks. The disadvantage is that heat can reach an insufficient temperature or be generated when no one needs it. Concrete batteries aim to add temporary storage and options to increase their thermal utility.
In August 2026, energy company Helen announced a deal with OnZero to use waste heat from a new data center in Helsinki. When the project reaches its designed capacity, it can provide more than 500,000 MW of heat per year, Enough, according to the company, to meet some heating needs 70,000 piyou. Heat recovery is planned to begin in 2027.
A concrete battery
The battery is made of a material derived from cement and designed to store heat with tubes that allow rapid transfer. Instead of treating all heat as waste that should be expelled immediately, we try to recover some of it.
Data center in Aragon.
Battery included sealed thermal tubes, called a thermosyphon, which contains a liquid. It absorbs heat, evaporates and passes through the tube; Then, when it condenses, it releases that heat to another area. It transfers thermal energy to the storage element.
The stored energy can power an absorption refrigeration machine, be used in industrial processes or be used in a heating network. Its conversion to electricity through an appropriate thermodynamic cycle is also contemplated, although this implies losses.
Google Data Center
Omicrono
After the test is carried out, the power is obtained later A complete charge and discharge cycle Exceeds 70%This means that a significant amount of energy supplied can be recovered after storage. The system can use both waste heat and electricity from the server, creating two paths for charging the storage unit.
The team has validated the manufacturing and assembly of a prototype and is in the licensing process to develop the technology commercially. However, published data do not yet demonstrate large-scale commercial deployments in operational data centers.
