Uploaded September 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
WHY IS A MONK PROTESTING TO SAVE AN OLD ONSEN?
This is 旧すかっとランド九頭竜 — Sukatto Land Kuzuryu in Fukui, Japan.
Fukui City records show that this public facility originally cost approximately ¥4.68 billion to build.
In fiscal 2018, before COVID, it recorded 129,649 users.
Now the building faces demolition, with a cited demolition cost of approximately ¥1.58 billion.
That is the question behind the protest:
Before spending ¥1.58 billion to destroy a ¥4.68 billion public asset, have we seriously tested what else this building could become?
The monk is not arguing that an old building should simply be preserved because it is old.
The proposal is to transform it.
The concept is called AI Koban.
A traditional Japanese koban is a small neighborhood police box: local, distributed, close to the community.
AI Koban applies that same distributed idea to the AI era — small, community-scale computing infrastructure serving local schools, universities, researchers, businesses, hospitals, emergency services and new industries rather than concentrating all compute in a few giant metropolitan data centers.
At the center would be a COGDC — Community-Owned Green Data Center.
Instead of treating computing heat as waste, the project proposes capturing that heat and using it for the onsen, hot water, building heating and potentially other community applications.
Compute produces heat.
An onsen needs heat.
Put them together.
The larger vision is to convert an aging public facility into a working laboratory for regional regeneration:
• AI Koban distributed computing
• COGDC — Community-Owned Green Data Center
• waste-heat recovery for the baths and building
• 24-hour onsen and community space
• AI education and research
• university and high-school collaboration
• startup and innovation space
• autonomous agriculture research
• local jobs and new industry
• locally useful computing infrastructure
The proposed model is a PPP — Public-Private Partnership, bringing public purpose together with private investment, technology and operating expertise.
This is not simply:
“Save an old onsen.”
The question is:
Can we save an existing public asset and turn it into infrastructure for Japan’s AI future?
Demolition is irreversible.
Transformation can be tested.
That is why the monk is standing outside an abandoned onsen with a protest sign.
And yes, apparently this is what monks do in the age of AI.
YUMORI.me
Save the onsen.
Build the AI Koban.
Turn waste heat into community heat.
Turn an abandoned public asset into infrastructure for the next generation.
#AIKoban #COGDC #CommunityOwnedGreenDataCenter #YUMORI #YUMORIme #SaveTheOnsen #すかっとランド九頭竜 #九頭竜 #福井 #Fukui #PublicPrivatePartnership #PPP #GreenDataCenter #WasteHeatRecovery #DataCenter #AIInfrastructure #RegionalRevitalization #地方創生 #官民連携 #AI #eSingularity
WHY IS A MONK PROTESTING TO SAVE AN OLD ONSEN?
This is 旧すかっとランド九頭竜 — Sukatto Land Kuzuryu in Fukui, Japan.
Fukui City records show that this public facility originally cost approximately ¥4.68 billion to build.
In fiscal 2018, before COVID, it recorded 129,649 users.
Now the building faces demolition, with a cited demolition cost of approximately ¥1.58 billion.
That is the question behind the protest:
Before spending ¥1.58 billion to destroy a ¥4.68 billion public asset, have we seriously tested what else this building could become?
The monk is not arguing that an old building should simply be preserved because it is old.
The proposal is to transform it.
The concept is called AI Koban.
A traditional Japanese koban is a small neighborhood police box: local, distributed, close to the community.
AI Koban applies that same distributed idea to the AI era — small, community-scale computing infrastructure serving local schools, universities, researchers, businesses, hospitals, emergency services and new industries rather than concentrating all compute in a few giant metropolitan data centers.
At the center would be a COGDC — Community-Owned Green Data Center.
Instead of treating computing heat as waste, the project proposes capturing that heat and using it for the onsen, hot water, building heating and potentially other community applications.
Compute produces heat.
An onsen needs heat.
Put them together.
The larger vision is to convert an aging public facility into a working laboratory for regional regeneration:
• AI Koban distributed computing
• COGDC — Community-Owned Green Data Center
• waste-heat recovery for the baths and building
• 24-hour onsen and community space
• AI education and research
• university and high-school collaboration
• startup and innovation space
• autonomous agriculture research
• local jobs and new industry
• locally useful computing infrastructure
The proposed model is a PPP — Public-Private Partnership, bringing public purpose together with private investment, technology and operating expertise.
This is not simply:
“Save an old onsen.”
The question is:
Can we save an existing public asset and turn it into infrastructure for Japan’s AI future?
Demolition is irreversible.
Transformation can be tested.
That is why the monk is standing outside an abandoned onsen with a protest sign.
And yes, apparently this is what monks do in the age of AI.
YUMORI.me
Save the onsen.
Build the AI Koban.
Turn waste heat into community heat.
Turn an abandoned public asset into infrastructure for the next generation.
#AIKoban #COGDC #CommunityOwnedGreenDataCenter #YUMORI #YUMORIme #SaveTheOnsen #すかっとランド九頭竜 #九頭竜 #福井 #Fukui #PublicPrivatePartnership #PPP #GreenDataCenter #WasteHeatRecovery #DataCenter #AIInfrastructure #RegionalRevitalization #地方創生 #官民連携 #AI #eSingularity
