Who needs data centers in space when they can float offshore?

Who needs data centers in space when they can float offshore?

The energy crunch for AI data centers has gotten so extreme that people — not just Elon Musk — are speaking about launching servers into space so they can entry solar energy 24/7.

One startup thinks the ocean is a better place for them. Offshore wind developer Aikido is planning to submerge a 100-kilowatt demonstration data middle off the coast of Norway this 12 months. The small unit will live in the submerged pods of a floating offshore wind turbine.

If all goes properly, the company hopes to build a bigger version to deploy off the coast of the UK in 2028. That mannequin will sport a 15 megawatt to 18 megawatt turbine that will feed a ten megawatt to 12 megawatt data middle.

The transfer offshore may clear up a few challenges. Proximity to energy is an apparent one, since the source will sit overhead. Winds offshore are more constant than onshore, and a modest battery may bridge any lulls. 

Submerged data centers may remove considerations from NIMBY teams — “not in my backyard” — who oppose data centers close to their properties over noise and and air pollution considerations. 

Lastly, by floating in chilly seawater, cooling the servers could be a less complicated proposition. (Cooling is one significantly vexing issue for orbital data centers, since they have to make use of different strategies in the vacuum of space.)

But for all the challenges offshore data centers clear up, they introduce a few more. The ocean is a harsh atmosphere. While submerged servers wouldn’t be battered by waves, they also wouldn’t be fully stationary, so they’d should be totally battened down. Seawater is also corrosive, so any gear, including the container and energy and data connections, will should be hardened against it.

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Aikido isn’t the first company to suggest sinking data centers in seawater. Microsoft first floated the thought over a decade in the past, and in 2018 it launched an experiment off the coast of Scotland, which was modestly profitable. Only six of more than 850 servers failed in the 25-month trial. (The data corridor was stuffed with inert nitrogen fuel, which could assist clarify the servers’ low failure charges.) 

Microsoft accrued numerous patents over the years, which it open-sourced in 2021. But by 2024, the company had deep-sixed the project.

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