July 8, 2026
Pool’s closed? Not on server time
Tiny data centre used to heat public swimming pool
A tiny computer box is warming a pool — and the internet is arguing if it’s genius or tiny-toast nonsense
TLDR: A small computer unit is helping heat a Devon public pool and cutting huge energy costs, which could help keep struggling pools open. Online, people are split between calling it a clever win, doubting a tiny box can do that much, and joking that every big tech site now owes locals a free warm swim.
A public pool in Devon has found an unlikely hero: a washing-machine-sized computer box that helps keep the water around 30C much of the time and could save the leisure centre thousands. The company behind it, Deep Green, gives the unit to the pool for free, charges outside customers for computing work, and even covers the electricity bill. For a pool facing brutal energy costs after prices reportedly threatened to add £100,000 to bills, people online agreed on one thing: if it keeps pools open, that’s a big deal.
But of course, the comments section did what the comments section does best: turned a feel-good story into a mini brawl. One camp was instantly skeptical, basically asking, how on earth can one small server heat a swimming pool at all? That disbelief became the thread’s main drama, with people side-eyeing the “tiny box heats pool” headline like it was a magic trick. Another group went full policy-wonk-meets-neighborhood-chaos, joking that every controversial data centre should be forced to hand out free heated pools to locals as compensation.
Then came the classic internet flex: “Many such cases!” Users piled in with examples from Amsterdam, Switzerland, and even a New York bathhouse using computing heat in creative ways. There was also a nerdy-but-fair question floating above it all: if these machines make so much heat, why not turn it back into electricity? In other words, the pool may be warm, but the comment section is boiling
Key Points
- •A small data centre at Exmouth Leisure Centre in Devon is being used to heat a public swimming pool.
- •The oil-immersed system can heat the pool to about 30C around 60% of the time, reducing heating costs by thousands of pounds.
- •Deep Green provides the unit free of charge, sells its computing power for AI and machine learning, and says it will refund the leisure centre’s electricity costs for running it.
- •Sean Day said the leisure centre had expected energy bills to rise by £100,000, and the partnership has helped offset sharply higher energy and gas prices.
- •The article links the project to wider sector pressure, noting 65 swimming pools had closed since 2019, while expert commentary says data centre heat reuse can make sense if it saves money.