Most of the electricity used by servers eventually becomes heat that is typically cooled and discarded.
By Shula Rosen
NanoTherma captured first place in Access’s annual innovation competition with a system designed to turn waste heat from data centers into electricity, as organizers highlighted the growing challenge of energy consumption and heat management in large computing facilities.
Access, the innovation arm of Shapir Group, held the competition for the third consecutive year to identify technologies with practical uses in infrastructure, engineering and construction.
The company’s technology is based on advanced thermoelectric nanomaterials that recover heat produced by servers and convert it into usable power.
The system uses solid-state panels designed to fit directly into existing data center racks without relying on liquids or moving mechanical parts.
Judges said the technology stood out because of its ability to address a major operational issue facing data centers, which consume significant amounts of electricity while releasing most of that energy as excess heat.
According to the competition organizers, most of the electricity used by servers eventually becomes heat that is typically cooled and discarded, even as operators face rising power and cooling expenses.
NanoTherma’s approach aims to reuse part of that wasted thermal energy while reducing operational costs and environmental impact.
The judging panel also pointed to potential uses for the technology outside the data center sector. Organizers said judges were impressed by the possibility of deploying the system in desalination plants, heavy industry, and additional infrastructure sectors that routinely generate excess heat during operations.
The panel ultimately selected NanoTherma unanimously.
The competition focused on identifying technologies considered capable of practical implementation in infrastructure and engineering projects.
NanoTherma’s proposal focused on converting low-grade industrial heat into electricity through nanomaterial-based thermoelectric processes, enabling existing facilities to recover energy that would otherwise be lost during normal operations.
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