May 20, 2026
Editorial GuidelinesPaden is a writer for SideHustles.com. He began writing professionally in 2014, and previously worked as a journalist for Huck,...
As living costs soar, Americans are increasingly looking for ways to make extra cash. A startup from California is capitalizing on this by paying homeowners to put data centers in their homes.
On paper, it sounds like an easy side hustle for generating passive income. The need for space for data centers is only growing, so there’s plenty of demand. But is it really a scalable idea or worth it for homeowners?
As a result of AI’s growth, the demand for data processing is surging. With that comes the need for data centers.
According to recent Wall Street estimates, the largest technology companies in the US are projected to spend as much as $1 trillion on AI annually by 2027. A recent report from McKinsey also estimates that global spending on data centers will reach $7 trillion by 2030. 1
While the demand is clear, data centers need a lot of space. According to the World Resources Institute, the average data center site covered about 224 acres or 0.35 square miles in 2024. 2
As the need for processing power increases, tech companies are trying to acquire more land to meet the demand. However, they’re facing increased resistance to their plans to build data centers.
Maine attempted to ban companies from building these facilities within the state, though this legislation was vetoed by the governor. A report from Data Center Watch found that at least $156 billion in data center projects were blocked or delayed in 2025 as a result of local opposition and litigation. 3
The public perception of data centers is also growing increasingly negative. In a 2026 survey from the Pew Research Center, most Americans said that data centers had a more negative than positive impact on the environment (39% vs. 4%), home energy costs (38% vs. 6%), and quality of life for those nearby (30% vs. 6%). 4
To meet the increased demand for data centers, one startup has come up with an unorthodox solution. Span, a smart utility box company from California, has partnered with Nvidia and the home-construction company Pulte Homes to put mini data center “nodes” on the sides of people’s homes.
Span claims that the average US household only uses about 40% of the electricity capacity available to it, and says that its utility boxes can redirect that unused electrical capacity to GPUs. The idea is that if multiple homes install these devices, which Span calls XFRA nodes, they could be connected together and work on distributed computing jobs.
Span has only recently begun rolling out XFRA nodes, targeting a 100-home proof-of-concept with Pulte Homes. Span and Pulte Homes are starting out with newly built homes, then plan on retrofitting them onto existing residential and commercial properties.
In exchange for installing one of its mini data centers, Span has offered to pay a large portion of the homeowner’s electricity and internet bills.
Marc Spieler, Senior Managing Director of Global Energy Industry at Nvidia, told CNBC that leveraging existing locations will help cut back costs for homeowners, as well as satisfy the demand for data processing. “We believe that we can bring on AI solutions quicker, and it should add to the affordability story,” he said.
Although this plan has been referred to in the media as an offer of “free” electricity and internet, the reality is more complicated.
A Span spokesperson told Realtor.com that the exact compensation arrangement “will vary from one neighborhood or region to the next,” but note in some areas, they may charge a flat fee to homeowners for installing and maintaining the data center.
In return, they will pay the participant’s bills directly. They claim this will be “much lower than what the host would otherwise pay to their electric utility and internet service provider.”
“An example flat fee that we’ve shared previously is $150 per month, about half of what average Americans pay for their electricity and internet service,” he said. “In some cases, there may be no fee at all.”
According to the US Energy Information Administration, electricity prices in the US rose by 9% between February 2025 and February 2026. 5 While installing a mini data center may not always be a ticket to eliminating these costs completely, it will at least reduce them.
Some also argue that the heat waste from these data centers could be used to keep houses warm during the winter.
This is already being tested elsewhere—a UK-based startup called Heata has been installing cloud computing servers in people’s homes, while channeling the heat generated directly into the house’s hot water supply. This results in free hot water for the homeowners in exchange for installing these servers.
Chris Lander, Span’s VP, told Fast Company that they’ve “done a bunch of technical studies internally,” along with “modeling for different kinds of workloads.” Span and Nvidia seem confident that these mini data centers are the perfect solution to the problem of building expensive data centers.
However, since they’ve only just started rolling out the XFRA nodes, it’s unclear whether their idea will be scalable.
Despite Span’s claims that they’ve vigorously studied the viability of these mini data centers, the idea only works if enough homeowners get on board. A 2024 report from the Berkley Lab found that 4.4% of all energy in the US went to data centers. 6 Just training OpenAI’s GPT-4 model took an estimated 50 gigawatt-hours of energy—enough to power San Francisco for 3 days. 7
Span told CNBC that it can install 8,000 XFRA nodes for a cost up to five times cheaper than the construction of a typical 100-megawatt data center of the same size and capability. While that’s economical, if the company hopes to satisfy the processing requirements of new AI models, it’ll need thousands of homeowners to install these devices.
As mentioned, many residents are reluctant to let tech companies build data centers in their communities. Would these same people really be willing to install these nodes in their own homes?
In a recent Reddit thread, people’s sentiments were mixed. One user stated that they “would be happy to host something like this,” especially if it gets their electricity bills paid. They also said that using these nodes to warm their house during winter would be a bonus.
Other users were more skeptical. In another thread, one user cited security concerns with having this technology in your home. “There’s a reason data centers have more security than airports,” they said. Others echoed these concerns, and one user wondered who would be responsible if the device was stolen or damaged.
Jeff Lichtenstein, president and founder of Echo Fine Properties in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, also told CBNC that attempting to set up these devices in residential communities would be problematic. “I can’t even imagine our Facebook community page,” he said. “Fighting between data companies and cities and homeowner associations would make typical Republican versus Democrat fighting look like child’s play.”
Another worry for users is just how loud these devices are. As data centers become larger to meet the high processing demands of AI, they become noisier. According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), a cluster of data centers can raise noise levels to up to 96 decibels. 8
Span’s XFRA nodes are much smaller, and the company claims they emit noise up to 60 decibels—about the same volume as a normal conversation. 9
With some states and local governments also blocking or delaying plans to build data centers, these smaller devices could face similar opposition. Many people oppose data centers due to environmental concerns, and Span has, for now, not addressed these concerns.
February 4, 2026
January 19, 2026
February 10, 2026
