Span is testing about 100 home data centers ahead of a planned 2027 rollout

Span wants homeowners to welcome a data center by offering to pay their electricity and internet bills. The company says about 100 of its home-sized computing units are being tested before a planned 2027 rollout, according to The New York Times. Experts question whether the approach eases infrastructure pressures or simply spreads them across neighborhoods.

Called XFRA, the unit resembles an outdoor heating-and-cooling system: a gray metal enclosure with a fan behind a grille. Inside are 16 Nvidia processors. It does not need a constant water supply and is described as about as loud as a dishwasher, putting industrial computing equipment into a familiar-looking residential package.

The proposed host package also includes one of Span’s smart electrical panels. Ryan Harris, the company’s chief revenue officer, argues that people object less to AI itself than to having its infrastructure imposed on them. Span’s answer is to make individual households willing participants by giving them a direct financial benefit.

Spare capacity is not extra electricity

The electrical panel is central to the design, not just an incentive. Span already specializes in panels that control when and how electricity is distributed. It wants to identify spare capacity at homes and use it to run XFRA units without requiring new transformers or substations. That is the company’s proposed route around infrastructure upgrades associated with large facilities.

A unit running at full capacity could require about 50 amps, Span says. The panel would coordinate that demand with other household uses, while an included battery could supply power during peak demand. Those controls are intended to manage when electricity is drawn, rather than eliminate the computing equipment’s need for it.

The scale remains substantial. The Times cites a Scientific American calculation that a unit operating at about 50 amps would use an average U.S. household’s monthly electricity in three days. Span puts another comparison on it: roughly 8,000 home units would match the power requirements of a large data center. That is a power comparison, not a claim of equivalent computing performance.

They haven’t solved the problem of how much power you need, because you still need the same amount of power, it’s just in a different place.

Andy Lawrence, executive director of research at Uptime Institute Intelligence, speaking to The New York Times

Not every critic rejects decentralization. Pete Sacco, founder and president of PTS Data Center Solutions, supports moving away from centralized infrastructure. But he favors data centers tied to communities rather than individual homes—a distinction between distributing facilities and making households their hosts.

Hosting comes with more than a power bill

Recruiting enough households is another hurdle. Duncan Callaway, a University of California, Berkeley professor of energy and resources, cautions that residential customers can be difficult to recruit. He also points to social uncertainty: residents may care how neighbors view a home that hosts a data center, even when the owner accepts the arrangement.

Robert Luecke Jr., chief operating officer at ShopProp Realty, raises a different set of homeowner questions. He wonders how XFRA might affect resale value and what happens if Span closes or is sold. His practical concerns include:

• Who pays to maintain the equipment?
• Who pays to remove it?
• Would a homebuyer have to take over the hosting contract?

Physical security also matters. A unit contains as much as $250,000 worth of computer parts, according to the Times. Lawrence says that equipment would need protection—another consideration beyond the enclosure’s modest size and familiar appearance.

Span hopes to bring XFRA to market with homebuilder PulteGroup, which is conducting its own tests. In late September, Span also announced a partnership with solar-and-battery installer Sunrun. Both relationships are connected to its effort to place computing equipment at homes, rather than build one conventional campus.

For now, the effort remains a pilot. Harris says tests at homes in Texas and Northern California are going well; market availability is planned for sometime in 2027.