Industry and academia are coming together in a new R&D project to harness excess heat from data centres to grow algae, which can then be recycled into energy.

Large data centres produce a lot of heat. Some organisations have started thinking about how to recycle this waste heat and use it for something useful, rather than it being lost to the atmosphere.

For instance, the Data4 group, a French operator and investor in the data centre market, and the Université Paris-Saclay have partnered to launch an R&D project to capture the heat produced by data centres and reuse it to grow algae in what is deemed the world’s first bio-circular data centre.

The project commenced in early 2024 and will be trialed in the Paris region.

Currently, the most widespread reuse of excess heat from data centres is to warm nearby homes. However, according to Data4, this solution only exploits 20% of the heat produced.

Data4 claims that a more efficient alternative is to reuse this heat to grow algae. It...