Power technology firms Sapphire Technologies and Anax Power are working together to deploy a system that turns excess pressure from gas pipelines into power and cooling for data centers.

Under the agreement, Californian firm Sapphire will supply its FreeSpin In-line Turboexpander, a device which captures waste energy generated by pressure reduction processes in pipelines. Anax will integrate it into a colocated data center facility designed to convert excess pipeline pressure into emission-free power and cooling.

Anax has no background in building data centers, but intends to handle the construction and operation of the site, with commissioning expected later this year. It is not clear from the announcement whether land for the data center has been secured, but the companies say it will be occupied by Magellen Scientific, a Bitcoin miner.

New Jersey-based Anax intends to locate modular data centers along pipelines, something the company says will “unlock multiple pathways for energy redundancy.”

It said: “By recovering otherwise wasted pressure energy, the system generates electricity without combustion or emissions. Simultaneously, high-capacity cooling is produced and used to efficiently manage server heat load.”

The data centers will be located adjacent to pressure regulating stations in the natural gas transmission network, thousands of which can be found across the US. Each of these locations can be operationalized in months, according to the firms, with Sapphire’s FreeSpin systems able to provide enough power and cooling for Edge AI inference, modular HPC deployments, and distributed cloud infrastructure. And, apparently, cryptocurrency mining.

“Data centers face continued challenges with power availability and thermal management,” said Freddie Sarhan, CEO of Sapphire Technologies. “This project demonstrates how pressure energy recovery delivers both electricity and cooling capacity in a single system, supporting data center growth through smarter infrastructure design. Turboexpanders are the right energy building block for distributed data centers, and Anax provides a repeatable template that can be deployed at scale.”

Typical installations will provide up to 3MW of electricity and up to 35 million BTU of cooling capacity, the companies said.

“Pressure energy is one of the most overlooked sources of emission-free power,” said Michael Longo, CEO of Anax Power. “Our partnership with Sapphire represents a first-of-its-kind integration of turboexpander generation with data center infrastructure. By combining emission-free power and cooling, Anax is poised to quickly build a fleet of modular, distributed data centers with industry-leading PUE performance.

“Anax provides pipeline operators a no-risk development model – we finance, build, and operate the system – while monetizing the energy through high-value digital infrastructure services.”