Volcano Powered Data Centers
El Salvador is poised to become the compute capital of Central America
El Salvador is poised to become the compute capital of Central America and beyond because of it’s geothermal energy resources and the leadership of President Nayib Bukele, who is promoting and building data centers that are powered by geothermal derived electricity.
El Salvador is fortuitously located along the Pacific coastline of Central America, where a string of volcanoes runs for more than 1,000 kilometers from Guatemala to Panama. El Salvador has 36 active volcanoes of the 242 existing in its geography, as indicated today by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources.
The capital city of San Salvador sits in line with this chain of cones and calderas, and the country derives 75 % of it’s electricity from a combination of hydroelectric, geothermal, and fossil fuels. Geothermal accounts for about 25 % of the country’s electricity and is growing, as catalyzed by the need for inexpensive and reliable energy to power it’s economy and burgeoning data centers. El Salvador’s geothermal capacity is supported by two main plants: the Ahuachapán plant with an installed 95 MW capacity, and the Berlin plant in Usulután with a 110 MW capacity.
Above: 10 major volcanoes of El Salvador, which has upwards of 36 active volcanoes. There are a total of 242 volcanoes existing in its geography and vast pools of untapped geothermal energy sources.
Above: Tecapa/Berlin geothermal facility. El Salvador has a long history with geothermal power, having inaugurated the Ahuachapán plant in 1975 and the Tecapa/Berlin facility in 1999. El Salvador’s geothermal capacity is supported by the Ahuachapán plant with an installed 95 MW capacity, and the Berlin plant in Usulután with a 110 MW capacity.
El Salvador’s ongoing geothermal build-out. In February 2023, a major update was announced that the InterEnergy consortium would build and operate two new geothermal wells: one in Chinameca, San Miguel, with a 20 MW capacity, and another in San Vicente, producing 10 MW.
The Potential for Geothermal Energy to Meet Growing Data Center Electricity Demand
Above: data center electricity demand is going exponential, and the need for reliable baseload power generation. Source: The Potential for Geothermal Energy to Meet Growing Data Center Electricity Demand.
A short list of data center utilization:
Hosting private cloud applications for businesses
Processing big data and powering machine learning and AI
Supporting high-volume eCommerce platforms
Powering online gaming communities
Managing data storage, backups, and recovery
Powering stock trading systems
Real time medical imaging, diagnosis, and research
Enabling autonomous vehicles and real-time maps
Volcano Power: El Salvador Poised to Become a Southern Hemisphere AI and Crypto Leader
President Nayib Bukele shocked the nation and many around the world with his announcement last summer that bitcoin would become legal tender beside the U.S. dollar in El Salvador. Bitcoin mining is the process of creating new Bitcoins by solving extremely complicated math problems that verify transactions in the currency. When a bitcoin is successfully mined, the miner receives a predetermined amount of Bitcoin.
El Salvador now has an estimated Bitcoin holdings valued at almost $400 million, mined using 1.5 MW of electricity from Tecapa/Berlin geothermal power plant.
Above: container containing 300 computers that mine crypto at Tecapa/Berlin geothermal power plant near El Salvador’s Tecapa volcano.
Future AI Geothermal Powered Innovation and Partnership
Above: Aaron Ginn, CEO and co-founder of Hydra Host and President Bukele make a recent deal for NVIDIA’s cutting-edge B300 system .
In a groundbreaking move that positions El Salvador at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation, President Nayib Bukele has secured a number of NVIDIA’s cutting-edge B300 systems, featuring the most advanced AI processors available (16 × NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs). The announcement follows a high-level meeting between President Bukele and Aaron Ginn, CEO and co-founder of Hydra Host, a prominent AI infrastructure firm managing GPUs across more than 50 data centers.
NVIDIA’s cutting-edge B300 system, featuring 16 × NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs, are set to power El Salvador’s National AI Laboratory, bolstering the country’s plans to build a fully sovereign AI infrastructure. This initiative will allow El Salvador to operate independently in AI research, development, and deployment, ensuring national resilience, cybersecurity, and long-term economic competitiveness.
Of note, Hydra Host is an approved Tier 1 supplier for Nvidia products and leases AI compute time to major corporations worldwide using it’s Brokkr product. Hydra Host is a Peter Thiel Founder’s Fund seed company and has been growing rapidly, and recently hired Kai. S. Golden for special projects and to lead Hydra Host’s financial arm.
Above: Miami is becoming the crypto and financial center of the USA. Hydra Host co-founders Garret Johnson (COO) and Ariel Deschapell (CPTO), and Financing Lead for Data Centers Kai Golden.
Right, agreed 💯.
Bukele speaks fluent common sense.
But those evil volcanoes produce plenty of CO2 from roasting limestone 😆
Thanks for that story Al, times are a changing for El Salvador in a great way. I am looking forward to taking a trip there myself!