The idea is simple: catch the waste heat from data centers and use it to grow food. Now Justine Vanhalst and her team at Hringvarmi have won first place at High North Young Entrepreneur 2026 for it.
– Transforming data into dinner. What does it mean? How can the Netflix show you’re watching be turned into the food you’re going to eat tonight?
Justine Vanhalst opens her pitch on stage at the High North Dialogue conference in Bodø. In the room sit researchers, policymakers and investors, from across the Arctic.
– 100 percent of the energy that they are using is completely wasted in the shape of warm air or warm water, she tells the audience.
Photo by Natalie Andersen / Barentssekretariatet
The circle of warmth
Data centers are among the fastest growing industries in the world, and almost everything they consume comes back out as waste heat.
At the same time, Iceland imports around 80 percent of its fresh fruit and vegetables. Across the Nordics, the figure is more than half, Vanhalst explains.
Hringvarmi, which means «the circle of warmth», is built around the gap between those two facts. The company is developing retrofitted shipping containers that sit next to data centers and use the waste heat to run a controlled environment inside, where herbs and microgreens can grow.
The Hringvarmi pod has been tested in Akureyri in northern Iceland, together with the data center operator atNorth.
– Hringvarmi helps data centers reuse low-grade waste heat to support food security by heating closed, controlled environments for local food production, Vanhalst says.
Started in 2022
The company started as a hackathon project in 2022. Vanhalst and co-founder Dr. Alexandra Leeper won, kept working on the concept, and registered Hringvarmi two years later when grants and validation started coming in.
Today they are finishing a working prototype, with a funding round planned for late 2026.
Vanhalst was originally invited to Bodø for a side event, a panel discussion organised by the Barents Secretariat and NORA. The pitch competition came on top.
– I applied for it because it made sense to use my time in Bodø well, she says.
A little surreal
Hringvarmi took the first place and 40,000 kroner in prize money at High North Dialogue, ahead of the Norwegian aquaculture sensor company SenSea and the Icelandic biotech startup Araxni.
The competition received 23 applications from the Arctic and beyond, and the audience in Bodø decided the result by real-time vote.
– I was surprised and really happy with the results. It is a validation of the work we do at Hringvarmi, Vanhalst shares.
Norwegian SenSea took second place with sensors designed to prevent farmed fish from escaping, while Icelandic Araxni took third place with their biotechnological spider silk. The three finalists shared a total of 70,000 kroner in prize money.
– It was a bit surreal how well we got along with the other finalists. I believe it is because we all won, and at that stage it was just bonus to win the pitch, Vanhalst says.
Her message to other young entrepreneurs in the North is short:
– Just do it. You learn so much on the way, meet so many interesting and fascinating people and maybe your future investors, or future employer is in this crowd. It is just an open field of opportunities!
The three finalists in High North Young Entrepreneur pitched on stage during High North Dialogue. Presented on stage by Justine Vanhalst, Nikolay Hiller Klausen (middle) & Snorri Björn Magnússon. Photo by Maria Filiushina / Kontrafei.