The smart panel company Span will roll out a high-performance edge data center later this year that can be installed in homes and be powered by excess grid capacity, Latitude Media has learned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Called the XFRA Node, the mini distributed compute system is paired with Span\u2019s smart panel, which monitors a home\u2019s electricity use in real time, as well as a whole-home battery system. XFRA\u2019s orchestration software can schedule and route artificial intelligence workloads across different nodes based on latency requirements and available energy capacity, the company said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur hypothesis at Span has been that the existing distribution network operates at only 40 to 45% utilization, nominally,\u201d Arch Rao, founder and CEO of Span, told Latitude Media. \u201cSo there\u2019s plenty of headroom on the existing system that can be used in a more effective way. And then we\u2019re able to deliver compute much faster.\u201d<\/p>\n
This comes as Span raises its Series C round<\/a>, with $163 million in equity sold as of February. The company in 2025 expanded its business with a turn toward utilities<\/a> looking to meet load growth, rather than selling its smart panel to the individual consumer market alone.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The new compute product will be announced at Latitude Media\u2019s Transition-AI conference<\/a> this week.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n It arrives as demand for AI computing power outstrips the pace of deploying new power infrastructure in the U.S., due to years-long interconnection queues for new load and generation, equipment shortages, and local opposition. Up to half the data centers worldwide may be delayed this year, according to research by Sightline Climate<\/a>.<\/p>\n The crunch has created momentum around grid utilization<\/a>, a broad range of initiatives to unlock capacity via, for instance, shifting large load energy use via demand response, or else building out behind-the-meter resources like battery storage. Distributed computing falls under that grid utilization umbrella: Hyperscalers that buy the resulting compute could avoid the need for expensive new poles and wires \u2014 infrastructure that utility customers often end up paying for.<\/p>\n Rao noted that it currently takes between three and five years to build a 100-megawatt data center, and it costs upwards of $15 million per MW. Span can supply the same amount of compute by installing the XFRA Node at 8,000 new homes, which would take roughly six months, he said, at a cost of $3 million per megawatt.<\/p>\n An XFRA pilot is expected to roll out this year in 100 newly constructed homes, or about 1.25 MW of compute capacity across 1,600 direct liquid cooled inference GPUs. Span has several partnerships, including with Pulte Homes, the third-largest homebuilder in the country, which has already been installing Span\u2019s smart panels.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re able to use Span\u2019s panel technology to stay at 200 amps per home, which reduces the size of interconnection with the utility and the amount of copper in the home,\u201d Rao said. \u201cNow we\u2019re going one step further in our partnership to say, \u2018If you also deploy XFRA Nodes in a subset of homes, that has the added benefit of making the home more affordable to their buyers in terms of heavily discounted energy and Internet.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Elevate your brand with Latitude Studios<\/p>\n Work with Latitude\u2019s expert team of storytellers, producers, and marketers to create impactful campaigns that generate leads and enhance your brand\u2019s thought leadership.<\/p>\n