Amy Koscietak of American Electric Power’s Economic and Business Development division helps SAI.TECH Chief Operation Officer Tao Wu cut the ribbon on the site of the future computing heat recycling development center just off Ohio 7 near Marietta. (Photo by Nancy Taylor)

MARIETTA — A ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday on Gravel Bank Road, just yards off Ohio 7, marked a new addition to Washington County’s economic development map.

The company’s officials and local facilitators agree: this project’s focus will have an impact on technology’s relationship to the environment for years to come, possibly across the globe.

SAI.TECH Global Corporation, headquartered in Singapore, is the parent company. It has three core businesses that all involve the world of computing technology at its highest level. It can quickly bring terms such as bitcoin, blockchain and crypto mining to the conversation. But its role in Washington County can be explained on a much more everyday level.

Computing at the highest level generates the byproduct of chip waste heat at a correspondingly high level. Just as automobile emissions eventually became a problem that came along with that blessing, so it is with computer heat. SAI.TECH wants to use its Marietta area site to research and develop ways to use the massive amount of generated heat instead of randomly releasing it into the air. The company wants to recycle and use the heat in agricultural, commercial, residential and industrial activities. As the world enters the Artificial Intelligence era with renewed enthusiasm, the digital world is exploding so much that the heat byproduct could be the “new” form of a universally used resource.

An online news release from SAI.TECH Tuesday evening indicated the new Marietta center will be called the Computing Heat Technology Development Recycle Center.

In fact, officials at Tuesday’s opening were planning on using the heat-capture-and-use technology they perfect to erect and heat a greenhouse on their site, where fruits and vegetables could be grown. The agricultural applications of the recycled heat could extend to chicken coops, grain dryers and a lot of other uses. The Washington County group is anxious to see if they can form a cooperative relationship with The Ohio State University Extension Office to explore all the possibilities.

Tao Wu, Chief Operation Officer of SAI.TECH, and Taio Cheung, co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer, attended Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting on Gravel Bank Road. Cheung said the new site was being established “in the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship,” and predicted its work would have global impact. He said the site being developed is practically perfect, flat land with great infrastructure.

Wu emphasized that SAI.TECH was already getting help from the local community in terms of ideas, expertise, and purchased goods and services.

“We’re building this together,” he said. “And it may eventually bring people from the whole world here.”

Southeastern Ohio Port Authority Director Jesse Roush added that the project probably has already involved eight to 10 local vendors.

“The grading and all the contractors,” he said. “Plus people supplying advice, like the Wittens farm produce group and Davis Pickering.”

Wu had a list of thank yous that included Roush and Amy Koscietak, senior manager of economic and business development for American Electric Power. The two have worked extensively with Wu in the research and development center’s placement. It is located beside one of the county’s electric substations, and large, reliable electric sources are essential for data/crypto projects.

“I have built a lot of data centers,” Wu said. He added, with a smile, “This one has been the easiest project for me.”

About a year ago, SAI.TECH became a publicly trading company under the new ticker symbol “SAI” on the Nasdaq Stock Market through a merger with TradeUp Global Corporation, according to information in an SAI press release. Roush said the company was in the process of forming a private, nonprofit research group to conduct the work in the new area research and development center.

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