A data center bathhouse? Architects are rethinking what AI infrastructure owes its neighbors.
Architects are proposing innovative designs for data centers that integrate public amenities, such as thermal baths, to benefit local communities. This concept addresses growing public opposition to the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure near residential areas.
Why it matters
As AI infrastructure scales rapidly, finding ways to mitigate the environmental and social impact on host communities is becoming a critical challenge for urban planning and tech companies.
Forma's "Pink Thermal Baths" imagines an underground data center that transfers the heat it emits to a public bathhouse above ground. Forma Generative AI has sparked a race among hyperscalers to build large data centers at high speed. Some facilities are being built near communities, attracting opposition from concerned residents. Architects are designing data centers that could benefit local neighborhoods. A data center goes up in the middle of a California desert oasis, and in return, a nearby community gets a 32,000-square-foot bathhouse where people lounge in pools warmed by subterranean servers . Forma, a New York-based architecture studio, designed the "Pink Thermal Baths" concept in 2021, before generative AI ignited a race to build computing facilities across America. Miroslava Brooks, a founding partner of Forma, told Business Insider the concept wasn't meant to be a blueprint for turning hyperscale AI campuses into spas.
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