California-based startup Span has developed XFRA, a distributed AI-compute network that turns unused electrical capacity in residential homes and small businesses into miniature data centers.
It may be one of the more ingenious workarounds yet from tech bros, as traditional data-center buildouts are increasingly delayed or canceled, not only because of permitting bottlenecks and grid constraints, but also because of rising local opposition.
Across parts of the country, ordinary folks are watching power bills surge, while AI hyperscalers are set to splurge $700 billion on data center buildouts this year alone. XFRA appears to be a convenient sidestep of local opposition by tech bros, transforming homes into miniature data center nodes.
“Comprising a distributed network of compute nodes located in residential and small commercial spaces, XFRA enables both the immediate and future compute needs of hyperscalers, neoscalers and AI cloud providers,” Span revealed earlier this month.
SPAN says XFRA is already running revenue-generating test units and plans a 100-unit test later this year, with broad U.S. deployment planned for 2027. This deployment next year could scale to more than 1 gigawatt of AI inference compute capacity.
According to a LinkedIn video, Span CEO Arch Rao says each node contains Dell PowerEdge servers with 16 Nvidia RTX Pro 6000 Blackwell GPUs, 4 AMD EPYC CPUs, and 3 TB of RAM, connected to a 24-port gigabit switch.
In the XFRA White Paper, Rao outlined how XFRA would install an “energy and compute system, including SPAN panel, whole-home battery backup system, along with the XFRA compute Node, at no cost to homeowners.”
The white paper then describes how homeowners benefit from a backyard data center: “XFRA pays the homeowner a monthly rental to subsidize their energy and high-speed broadband bills such that they are a fraction of what they would normally be. This offers homeowners a sizable discount, and predictability in their monthly billing.”
"your mortgage basically pays for itself" 1,2
1) mortgage may be 20%-40% higher
2) homeowner's job will migrate to collocated data center https://t.co/vBJv3cZAVm
News of the backyard data center concept first circulated earlier this month. The topic resurfaced on Tuesday when CNBC reported that Nvidia and homebuilder PulteGroup are helping SPAN install mini data centers in homes.
X users had a lot to say about the backyard data-center concept:
putting compute on residential meters is how they bypass every local zoning fight
— StockStorm (@StockStormX) May 5, 20262027 home invasion:
“Leave the jewelry. Where are the Blackwells?”
people are stealing copper wire and they want us to put ~$300k worth of electronics on the outside of our homes?
— DAM (@damcurious) May 5, 2026Running at 8 hours a day off peak would only cost about 17k just in electrical- no mention on how to cool it, or what external connectivity options are. Californias load can't even sustain the EV's currently on grid and people think we should be putting half rack AI clusters in…
— Business Tactical (@Bacon_Is_King) May 5, 2026Only a matter of time before politicians try to ban backyard data centers...
Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 21:20Authored by Kimberly Hayek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
A federal jury in Texas found a physician guilty of unlawfully distributing over a million pills of opioids and other controlled substances from a Houston-area clinic that operated as a pill mill, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Tablets of opioid painkiller Oxycodone delivered on medical prescription in Washington on Sept. 18, 2019. Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty ImagesDr. Barbara Marino, 65, of Tomball, was the sole prescribing physician at Angels Clinica, where she prescribed oxycodone, hydrocodone, and the muscle relaxer carisoprodol despite no legitimate medical purpose. The clinic accepted only cash and charged based on the prescriptions.
“Medical physicians who exploit their prescribing authority for profit over patient care break an inherent trust with their patients and we will hold them accountable,” Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division said in a statement. “The Department of Justice remains committed to protecting the public from dangerous and unlawful distribution of controlled substances, especially when the drug dealer is a doctor.”
DEA Assistant Administrator Cheri Oz said patients put their trust and lives into the hands of medical and health care professionals.
“The highly addictive, dangerous misused drugs in this case—oxycodone and hydrocodone—are meant to treat pain, not cause it,” Oz said. “DEA remains relentless in our pursuit of those who poison our communities and exploit our health care system, all to line their own pockets with the profit from other’s pain.”
Prosecutors noted that many patients were delivered by street-level “crew leaders” or “runners” who then filled the prescriptions and peddled the pills. Marino received over $400,000 in less than a year for writing the scripts, while ignoring red flags outlined in Texas pharmacy board guidance, prescribing the strongest short-acting versions of the drugs to nearly every patient.
In the trial, jurors heard of a pregnant woman in her third trimester who received the opioid-muscle relaxer combination, and a patient diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The jury found Marino guilty of one count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance and four counts of distributing a controlled substance. She could be sentenced up to 20 years in prison per count.
At Marino’s trial, an OB/GYN testified to the dangers to the pregnant patient and her unborn child. The prosecutor argued in closing arguments that the woman “didn’t go to her doctor, she went to her drug dealer.”
The DEA investigated the case, and the Justice Department’s Criminal Division Fraud Section trial attorneys prosecuted the case, along with the Texas Attorney General’s Office Medicaid Fraud Control Unit. Sentencing for Marino has not yet been scheduled.
Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 20:55The U.S. Air Force reports that the Boeing 747 donated by Qatar, now designated the VC-25B Bridge, has completed modification and flight testing and is entering the paint phase ahead of deployment as an interim Air Force One jet.
The bridge aircraft is a former Qatar head-of-state Boeing 747-8i that will serve as an interim presidential aircraft until Boeing's delayed VC-25B replacements are ready, now expected in 2028.
"This program epitomizes what is possible when clear accountability is placed on one individual, and the entire enterprise of stakeholders aligns behind a single mission outcome … deliver a bridge capability as soon as possible to relieve pressure on the aging VC-25A fleet," Gen. Dale White, Department of War direct reporting portfolio manager for Critical Major Weapon Systems, wrote in a press release.
The VC-25B Bridge underwent flight testing in Texas and is now in a hangar being painted in a "new red, white and blue" livery, according to the U.S. Air Force. The service said the aircraft will be ready for use by summer, likely ahead of the nation's 250th anniversary celebrations on July 4.
Rendering of the new paint scheme:
Military blog TWZ noted there are still a lot of "questions swirling about the legality and ethics of receiving the gifted plane." Last May, the Pentagon took delivery of the aircraft and said it would rapidly undertake the required modifications.
USAF did not disclose the new capabilities added to the former Qatari jet nor disclose the cost of the modifications. Lawmakers suggested last year that those modifications could exceed $1 billion.
Tyler Durden Tue, 05/05/2026 - 20:30