SILICON VALLEY, Calif. — ITRenew joined forces with Blockheating to address growing compute demand at the edge with green, all-in-one containerized data centers that recycle energy into a heating source for greenhouses in the community.

While many big cities have slowed or stopped data center construction due to overtaxed power grids and environmental concerns, tech trends like IoT and 5G are driving demand for more distributed, low-latency infrastructure. Together Blockheating and ITRenew are working to address these growing needs by accelerating local deployment of cost-effective, efficient, high-performance data centers that are good for customers and the environment.

Blockheating also saw this shift as an opportunity to take data center sustainability a step further by transforming heat generated by IT hardware from a waste product into a high-value resource. They achieved this by using water to cooling servers and harnessing the heat at temperatures up to 149°F as a reliable, low-cost, environmentally friendly alternative to natural gas. To bring the concept to market, they looked for a hardware partner equally committed to removing data center environmental impact without compromising quality, performance, or scalability. The partnership with ITRenew makes it easier to scale efficiently and achieve sustainability goals. Sesame rack solutions integrate recertified hyperscale data center technology, bringing the financial and carbon-reduction benefits of circularity to Blockheating’s customers.

In the Netherlands, there are over 3,700 hectares of commercial greenhouses. Each containerized data center located adjacent to a greenhouse can be used to heat 2 hectares in the summer and a half hectare in the winter — enough to grow tons of tomatoes every year.

“Blockheating is an innovative, fast-growing European solutions and infrastructure company with a commitment to green business,” said Ali Fenn, president, ITRenew. “Like us, they recognize that sustainable data center models implemented in the right way also enable market-leading performance and economics. Sesame is purpose-built to maximize flexibility, performance, compute density, and energy efficiency. That was exactly what Blockheating needed to address technical challenges and launch a competitive new business model that also does something good for the environment. We’re excited to bring Sesame solutions into their data centers where we can grow together.”

“ITRenew is an ideal partner for us,” said Jeroen Burks, CEO, Blockheating. “They share our view that waste is a choice, which means something only becomes waste if you decide it has no use any more. We chose ITRenew for their sustainability credentials, superior technology, ‘open compute’ flexibility, and the skill of their engineering team to deliver on our requirements at scale — all of which have enabled us to accelerate our development. Plus, our budget goes much further with Sesame than it would with conventional architecture, enabling us to integrate all the compute and storage we need to bring our vision to market. We look forward to a long-term relationship with ITRenew that helps our customers achieve their goals while providing practical benefits to industries outside of IT sector.”