Nvidia and SPAN Unveil Residential Mini AI Data Center Nodes

AI data centers are consuming more electricity while facing lengthy grid-connection delays. U.S. data centers used 183 TWh of electricity in 2024, accounting for more than 4% of nationwide consumption. California smart-energy startup SPAN aims to turn unused residential power capacity into edge computing resources for AI inference and cloud gaming. Nvidia will provide RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPUs, while homeowners will receive electricity and internet benefits in exchange for providing installation space.

SPAN announced XFRA on April 13, 2026, in partnership with Nvidia and homebuilder PulteGroup. The companies plan to deploy the first 100 nodes at homes in the U.S. Southwest in the fall of that year, providing about 1.2 MW in total. SPAN said 8,000 nodes could match a 100 MW data center while being deployed six times faster at one-fifth of the cost. It plans to expand to 80,000 nodes and more than 1 GW from 2027, though homeowner compensation has not been disclosed.