Relocate compute into submerged or floating offshore modules cooled by seawater
#00212
Seal servers in nitrogen-filled modules on the seabed or floating platforms, using seawater as the heat sink and removing the facility from any residential area. Demonstrated at 24 MW in Shanghai. Microsoft proved the concept off Orkney, then declined to commercialise it.
Nautilus Data Technologies · since 2021 · City
Nautilus Data Technologies commissioned a Tier III certified floating barge data centre on the Stockton, California waterway in 2021, providing 6.5 MW of critical IT load across ~20,000 sq ft at rack densities around 55…
Venture capital · 1 source
HiCloud Technology, with Shenergy Group, Shanghai Telecom and CCCC Third Harbor Engineering · since 2025 · City
The only commercial-scale underwater data centre in operation as of 2026. Servers sit in sealed watertight units offshore from Lingang, positioned between phases of an existing offshore wind farm; construction completed…
$226M · Consortium of Chinese state-linked enterprises · 3 sources
Microsoft Research, with the European Marine Energy Centre · 2018–2020 · Neighborhood
Microsoft deployed a sealed, nitrogen-filled cylindrical vessel containing 864 servers to the seabed at 117 feet off Orkney, powered by the islands' wind and solar grid, and retrieved it two years later. Phase 1 had bee…
Microsoft (corporate research) · 3 sources