Rather than building massive new data centers with their own ZIP code, SPAN is proposing a network of small units, called XFRA nodes, installed outside of homes or in small commercial locations. These nodes are no bigger than an HVAC or power generator found outside of any home, according to SPAN.
A SPAN representative told CNBC that it can install 8,000 XFRA units about six times faster and at five times lower cost than the construction of a typical centralized 100-megawatt data center of the same size.
“One big reason the XFRA model works is that the average American home only uses about 40 percent of its electrical capacity,” a SPAN spokesperson told Realtor.com. “As big data center developers struggle to find power sources and distribution capacity, XFRA uses capacity that’s already available.”
The hardware going into these devices is not exactly modest. The device packs 16 RTX6000 cards, four AMD Epyc CPUs, and 3TB of DDR5 memory. The cards are liquid cooled, and the design is meant to minimize sound, a major complaint of people living near data centers.
