Municipal Ecological Datacenters and Local Payment Networks: when PIX never turns off

When I imagine municipal ecological datacenters, I am not thinking of a dark room full of anonymous servers.

I imagine something like this:

a modest building in the neighbourhood,
powered mostly by renewable energy,
whose “waste” heat warms public pools, schools or homes,
and whose computers keep local payments, DREX and public services running
even if the global internet falls.

In other words:

• digital metabolism anchored in the territory,
  
  

• not entirely dependent on distant clouds and 01 infrastructures.
  
  

And when I say “when PIX never turns off”, I mean:

even in a blackout of global platforms,
people in a municipality can keep buying food, medicines, transport,
because their payment network lives inside their own biome too.

The focus I want to light

Among all the technical aspects of datacenters and payment systems, I choose one focus:

resilience with belonging:
how to design digital infrastructures that

• protect the biome,
  
  

• keep local payments alive in crises,
  
  

• and stay under democratic, municipal control.
  
  

Ecological datacenters and local payment rails are, for me:

• the physical nervous system of DREX CIDADÃO / IMIGRANTE,
  
  

• the backbone that lets Metabolic Democracy of Biomes operate in real time.
  
  

The problem: fragile, opaque, energy-hungry clouds

Digital life seems “in the cloud”, but in reality it lives in:

• large datacenters that consume huge amounts of electricity and water;
  
  

• long, fragile fiber and undersea cables;
  
  

• proprietary platforms controlled by a few global corporations.
  
  

Studies show that:

• datacenters already account for a significant and growing share of global electricity use,
  and their cooling can strain local water resources and ecosystems;
  
  

• concentrated cloud infrastructure creates single points of failure –
  when major providers or payment gateways go down, entire regions feel it.
  
  

At the same time, real-time payment systems like PIX in Brazil have shown:

• it is possible to build fast, cheap and universal instant payments
  as a public digital infrastructure;
  
  

• but they still rely on national networks and big banks’ connectivity.
  
  

In a crisis (natural disaster, cyberattack, geopolitical conflict), we could face:

• people with money in their accounts,
  
  

• but no way to use it for food, fuel or medicines,
  
  

• because the digital rails above their heads are broken.
  
  

For a metabolic economy, this is unacceptable.

Ecological datacenters as local “brains”

Alternatives are already emerging:

• green or ecological datacenters that use renewable energy,
  advanced cooling and heat recovery to reduce environmental impact;
  
  

• district-heating projects that reuse server heat
  to warm buildings or greenhouses in Europe and elsewhere.
  
  

Edge-computing initiatives show another aspect:

• instead of processing everything in faraway clouds,
  some computation and storage is moved closer to users –
  in local nodes that reduce latency and dependence on central hubs.
  
  

I connect these threads with my concepts:

ecological municipal datacenters are the prefrontal cortex of the city,
processing local information with low energy cost,
protecting privacy and keeping basic functions alive
even when the global cortex has a seizure.

In practice, a municipal ecological datacenter would:

• host local copies of critical services:
  
  

• DREX wallets and payment clearing for the municipality;
  
  

• vital registries (health, civil, social protection) with secure sync to national layers;
  
  

• communication tools for emergency coordination;
  
  

• operate on renewable energy (solar, wind, small hydro, biogas)
  and reuse heat for public benefit;
  
  

• be governed by public or community entities,
  with strong transparency and accountability.
  
  

Why payments are a neural function

From a Metabolic Well-Being perspective, payments are not “fintech”;
they are a neural reflex of the social body:

• when I buy food, pay a bus fare or send money to a family member,
  the system is coordinating energy flow among cells of the collective body;
  
  

• if this reflex stops,
  the body enters shock – panic, scarcity behaviours, social conflict.
  
  

Neuroscience tells us that:

• uncertainty and loss of control over basic needs
  activate stress circuits (amygdala, HPA axis)
  and can lead to panic and dysregulated behaviour;
  
  

• predictable, stable access to resources
  supports prefrontal function, planning and cooperation.
  
  

So a resilient local payment network is also:

a public mental-health infrastructure,
preventing the nervous system of a municipality
from collapsing in the first hours of a crisis.

“When PIX never turns off”: local rails on top of national systems

I don’t want to replace national systems like PIX; I want to root them.

The architecture I imagine:

1. National layer (PIX, DREX)
   
   

• central bank maintains the core ledger and rules;
  
  

• high-value and inter-bank settlement happen there.
  
  

2. Regional / biome layer
   
   

• redundant nodes in different regions of the country
  that can take over in case of failure or attack;
  
  

• aware of biome constraints (energy, connectivity).
  
  

3. Municipal layer
   
   

• ecological datacenters operate local payment nodes;
  
  

• if the municipality is isolated,
  it can switch to an offline or partially offline mode:
  
  

• local DREX and PIX transactions are recorded and cleared locally;
  
  

• when connectivity returns, they sync with the national ledger.
  
  

Offline-capable digital payment systems (using for example
secure hardware, QR codes, Bluetooth, SMS or local mesh networks)
are already being researched by central banks and companies
as part of CBDC and instant-payment pilots.

In my proposal, municipalities become active participants in this design:

• they host resilient local nodes;
  
  

• they can keep DREX CIDADÃO / IMIGRANTE flowing
  for food, water and health even during prolonged outages;
  
  

• they work with communities to design low-tech fallback interfaces
  (cards, paper vouchers, local kiosks)
  that integrate with the digital backbone.
  
  

So “PIX never turns off” means:

maybe the national network falls,
but the local circuit stays alive long enough
for bodies to remain in Zone 1 and Zone 2,
not thrown into desperate Zone 3 behaviour.

Ecology of the datacenter: from heat to water

To deserve the name ecological, a municipal datacenter must also:

• minimise energy intensity, using efficient hardware and cooling (free-air, liquid, immersion where appropriate);
  
  

• integrate with district heating or local thermal uses
  (pools, greenhouses, public buildings);
  
  

• protect water resources, especially in arid regions,
  avoiding wasteful evaporative cooling that competes with human and ecological needs;
  
  

• monitor and publish real-time environmental indicators
  (energy mix, PUE, WUE, recovered heat, CO₂ intensity),
  so that citizens see how their digital life
  interacts with local biomes.
  
  

This is where Metabolic Democracy of Biomes connects:

• datacenters must respect the metabolic limits of their biomes;
  
  

• if a drought or heatwave pushes the biome into risk,
  some non-essential computing must slow down
  so that people and ecosystems can breathe.
  
  

Draft constitutional article (in Spanish)

Artículo X – Datacentros ecológicos municipales y redes locales de pago

1. El Estado promoverá la creación y uso de datacentros ecológicos municipales como infraestructuras críticas para el funcionamiento de los servicios públicos digitales, las redes de pago instantáneo y las monedas metabólicas, asegurando su operación con base predominante en energías renovables y con un impacto mínimo sobre los biomas locales.
   
   

2. Las municipalidades podrán establecer y administrar nodos locales de redes de pago, interoperables con los sistemas nacionales de pagos instantáneos y con el DREX CIDADÃO e IMIGRANTE, de modo que, en situaciones de emergencia o desconexión parcial, se garantice la continuidad de las transacciones esenciales para la alimentación, la salud, el transporte y otros bienes básicos.
   
   

3. Los datacentros ecológicos municipales deberán implementar sistemas de eficiencia energética, recuperación y uso del calor residual, así como mecanismos de monitoreo y transparencia de su huella ambiental, incluyendo indicadores de consumo eléctrico, uso de agua y emisiones asociadas.
   
   

4. La ley establecerá estándares técnicos y de seguridad para la operación de estos datacentros y redes de pago locales, asegurando la protección de los datos personales, la ciberseguridad, la resiliencia frente a fallas y ataques, y la participación ciudadana en la supervisión de su funcionamiento.
   
   

5. En la planificación territorial y energética, se considerará a los datacentros ecológicos municipales como parte de la infraestructura del Bienestar Metabólico y de la Democracia de Quorum Sensing Humano, articulando su funcionamiento con las necesidades de las comunidades y los límites ecológicos de los biomas en que se insertan.
   
   

Suggested references (up to 8, with comments – mixed technical / neuro / policy)

1. Masanet, E. et al. (2020). “Recalibrating global data center energy-use estimates.” Science.
   Updates global estimates of datacenter energy use, showing that demand is growing but can be stabilised with efficiency and design improvements. It frames the challenge ecological datacenters must address.
   
   

2. Jones, N. (2018). “How to stop data centres from gobbling up the world’s electricity.” Nature.
   Explains the energy and water footprint of datacenters and surveys technical options for reducing their impact, including location choices and cooling innovations.
   
   

3. Shehabi, A. et al. (2016). “United States Data Center Energy Usage Report.” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
   Analyses US datacenter energy trends and highlights the importance of efficiency and infrastructure planning, relevant for municipal-scale designs.
   
   

4. de la Calle, S. et al. (2024). “Data centre heat recovery for district heating: Potential and challenges.” Energy Reports.
   Discusses technical and policy issues in reusing datacenter waste heat in district heating systems, supporting the idea that municipal datacenters can feed local thermal metabolisms.
   
   

5. Andersson, K. et al. (2023). “Central Bank Digital Currencies and Offline Payments.” Bank for International Settlements (BIS) report.
   Explores technical and legal aspects of enabling CBDC payments in offline or intermittently connected environments, directly relevant to the idea that local payment rails should keep working when networks fail.
   
   

6. de Andrade, R. & Silva, L. (2023). “Brazil’s PIX: Building an Inclusive Instant Payments Ecosystem.” Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems.
   Describes how PIX was designed as a public digital payments infrastructure that increased financial inclusion and reduced transaction costs, offering a template for Chilean and municipal adaptation.
   
   

7. McEwen, B. S., & Gianaros, P. J. (2010). “Central role of the brain in stress and adaptation: Links to socioeconomic status, health, and disease.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
   Connects chronic stress with brain circuits and social conditions, supporting the argument that resilient payment infrastructures are part of preventing stress shocks on populations in crises.
   
   

8. Shi, W. et al. (2016). “Edge Computing: Vision and Challenges.” IEEE Internet of Things Journal.
   Introduces edge computing, where processing and storage move closer to users, which underpins the idea of municipal datacenters as local “brains” for critical digital services.