This is an excellent take by Michael Liebreich on the subject.
https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-generative-ai-the-power-and-the-glory/
Here's my take on generative AI, which based on my professional experience with AI and data centers considers a red herring amplified by the fossil fuel industry to draw our attention away from cars burning gasoline and industry burning natural gas.
Regarding closed loop generation of electricity, no. The heat that the data center produces is low temperature, perhaps 50-60° Celsius. That's well under useful energies for electrical generation. To get electricity you'd have to use more electricity and heat pumps to upgrade the heat to boil water to generate steam, and then you'd only get 30% of the energy out of the result as electricity. Steam generation is very low efficiency.
As Liebreich notes in his piece and I've noted when asked, data centers also aren't in useful locations to feed district heating grids, which are one of the few use cases for that kind of heat. We agree it's going to be vented to the environment 99% of the time.
