A partnership between data centre operator Deep Green and energy technology firm Zendo Energy is redirecting waste heat from artificial intelligence computing into a public leisure facility in Greater Manchester, reducing energy costs and carbon emissions for the local community.
The collaboration centres on Deep Green's Urmston facility, where heat generated by high-density server infrastructure is captured and channelled into the swimming pools at Trafford Leisure Centre, delivering estimated annual savings of around £80,000.
Renewable electricity is supplied to the site by ENGIE, while Zendo's Energy OS platform handles forecasting, monitoring and optimisation to manage the variable demands of AI workloads. The facility supports rack densities of up to 150 kilowatts, placing it at the higher end of thermal output for current data centre infrastructure.
Deep Green's broader model involves deploying smaller, modular data centres close to buildings capable of absorbing surplus heat — swimming pools, district heating networks and public buildings among them — as a means of offsetting conventional heating demand at scale.
The approach also addresses a pressing sector-wide challenge. As AI adoption drives rapid growth in data centre demand, operators face constraints around grid capacity, infrastructure timelines and sustainability commitments. Deep Green argues that decentralised, modular deployment can bring facilities online within weeks rather than the years typically required for conventional developments.
Drew Barrett, COO and co-founder of Zendo Energy, described the Urmston site as a template for future data centre development, combining flexible energy contracts, renewable sourcing and heat reuse within a single infrastructure model.
Deep Green and Zendo turn AI data centre waste heat into community energy
Drew Barrett and Jade Batstone co-founders of Zendo | Credit: Zendo
