Partnership will reduce energy consumption by 80% while supporting existing applications.
London, UK, October 1, 2024 - heata.co and expanso.io today announced a new partnership to offer greener cloud computing services that reduce energy use by 80% whilst saving families up to £340 per year on their energy bills by reusing waste heat from servers. The partnership will enable the high scale open source software Bacalhau to allow Docker and WASM workloads to run in a distributed way across the Heata network to cut carbon and help people in fuel poverty. Once set-up workloads can be deployed directly from the Bacalhau CLI.
Cloud migration is complicated
While cloud adoption is accelerating, the process to get into highly efficient, hyperscale data centres remains challenging. Developers often face hurdles with compatibility, porting applications, and managing distributed compute jobs across hybrid deployments. This complex process also incurs significant costs, and cloud providers also charge hefty fees for data transfer, especially for large volumes of information.
The grid is struggling
The growth of AI is driving unprecedented power consumption by data centres. The IEA estimates a doubling of energy demand from the sector within just 2 years, and electricity grids are failing to keep up. Reusing the heat produced by servers presents a huge opportunity to reduce energy consumption, but it means moving the data closer to where we need the heat. To enable this, Heata has installed servers into homes across the UK; the waste heat from their processing is delivered for free to the home - saving households up to £340 per year on their energy bill.
New frameworks for distribution
Implementing this model means adopting new compute frameworks that support distributed infrastructure. Through this partnership, Heata and Expanso are providing organisations with an easier and more cost effective way to improve the efficiency of their compute, whilst also increasing reliability and reducing job runtime. Together, these innovations enable a cloud infrastructure with superior energy efficiency and carbon accountability, as well as lowering heating costs for households across the UK.
"Businesses want the flexibility and scale of cloud computing, but smooth migration is difficult with traditional infrastructure," said David Aronchick, CEO of Expanso.io. "It often requires re-architecting applications and dealing with regulatory compliance, security, and latency concerns. Our partnership with Heata, based on the Bacalhau platform, makes it possible to move to the cloud easily whilst also ensuring that it's done with maximum respect for the environment."
“Heata’s mission is for the waste heat from compute to support the need for heat in society,” said Chris Jordan, founder & CTO of Heata. “adding the Expanso platform to our proposition is making it easier for our cloud customers to access Heata compute, and broadening our target markets.”
"As a software company, Equal Experts is highly aware of the impact of data centres on the environment, and we're always looking for ways to mitigate this” said Lewis Crawford, Data & AI Service Lead at software services firm Equal Experts. “Partnering with Heata is not only enabling us to reduce the carbon footprint of our cloud activities, but also to deliver social impact at the same time. We're excited to bring this opportunity to our client base, and the integration of Bacalhau will make this easier than ever."
Tom Bishop, South of Scotland Enterprise’s Strategy Manager for Infrastructure and Investment, said “SOSE is excited to be supporting the expansion of the heata network in Scotland to provide greener cloud services that deliver real social, economic and environmental benefits to the South of Scotland, where fuel poverty is a key challenge. As part of our role to accelerate the Just Transition to Net Zero and advance innovation in the South, we want local businesses to run workloads on green data assets such as the heata network to provide benefits to their own communities - Bacalhau will make this process seamless."
FAQ
What are the benefits of the Heata and Expanso partnership?
This partnership enables organisations to easily transition to cloud computing in an eco-friendly way. Customers can seamlessly migrate workloads to Heata's distributed green cloud infrastructure powered by Bacalhau. This provides greater energy efficiency, lower costs, faster deployment, and reduced environmental impact.
How does this partnership help cut carbon emissions?
Heata reduces energy consumption by eliminating the need for active cooling (20%-60% of a data centre’s energy consumption) and by avoiding usage of the primary heating system in the home. Since this is typically gas, this results in an additional carbon saving. Expanso enables running on these compute units with almost no incremental work, increasing the utilisation of Heata’s servers and generating more heat for the homes.
What cost savings result from this collaboration?
The improved energy efficiency lowers utility bills for running cloud workloads by over 30%. Heata's units also cut heating costs for residential customers hosting the computing hardware. Faster migration to the cloud avoids expensive legacy infrastructure costs. Lower data transfer fees further reduce expenses.
How does the integration support existing applications?
The Expanso platform enables distributed computing while supporting Docker containers and WASM code. This allows easy migration of legacy applications without time-consuming re-architecting. Customers can go from on-prem to cloud faster and maximise utilisation of existing software investments.
What are the next steps for the partnership?
Over the next year, Heata and Expanso plan rapid expansion of green cloud capacity across UK. The collaboration will continue optimising Bacalhau to improve efficiency, cut costs, and boost sustainability. More enterprise customers are expected to shift core operations to this green cloud infrastructure through 2025 and beyond.
How do I submit a job to Heata that uses Expanso?
# Below runs a job anywhere on the Expanso network that is a
# fit for the requirements
$ heata run job.yaml
How do I submit a job to Expanso / Bacalhau that uses Heata?
# Below runs a job anywhere on the heata network
$ bacalhau docker run –-network=heata job.yaml
About Expanso
Expanso is a technology company focused on redefining distributed computing by bringing computation directly to where the data is. Their mission is to simplify complex infrastructure, allowing businesses to efficiently process data wherever it’s generated—whether in the cloud, on-premises, or at the edge. Committed to advancing technology, Expanso aims to drive efficiency, foster innovation, and deliver meaningful benefits to organisations and individuals worldwide.
For more information, visit www.expanso.io
About heata
Backed by Centrica, heata reuses the waste heat from compute to support the need for heat in society. It operates a network of servers in people’s homes across the UK, which it aggregates to provide more sustainable cloud services to companies looking to reduce the carbon footprint of their IT and give back to the community in the form of free heat. By using energy twice - once for compute, once for heating - heata reduces energy use by 80% whilst helping people in fuel poverty.
For more information, visit www.heata.co
About South of Scotland Enterprise
South of Scotland Enterprise (SOSE) supports businesses and enterprising communities throughout Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders. SOSE is here to help people and enterprises in the South to thrive, grow and fulfil their best potential.
