'World first' seabed data centre will run on offshore wind power

China claimed a world first with the launch of a commercial-scale underwater data centre project powered by offshore wind.

Seabed deployment offers several potential big wins for the booming data centre sector. One is access to development real estate near massive cities. Another comes in the form of ready-made seawater-based cooling that Hicloud claims can boost energy efficiency by up to 60%.

Hicloud will invest about 1.6bn yuan ($222m) in the Shanghai Lingang UDC project, which will source about 90% of its power from offshore wind farms operating in the area, it was reported.

The Shanghai cluster builds on experience gathered during a demonstrator project that Hicloud deployed in 2022 off China’s Hainan province.

While the Chinese project claims to be the first commercial scale wind-powered initiative, global tech giant Microsoft tested seabed deployment of servers off Orkney, Scotland, in a two-year trial that ended in 2020.

Despite deeming the Scottish test a success, Microsoft has not so far revealed plans for any larger deployments of the technology.

Deploying data centres underwater or even sending them into orbit are two of the more extreme measures being considered to reduce the energy needs of ever more power-hungry AI-based facilities.

Back in the mainstream, some hyperscale data centre operators are sealing deals for gas or even nuclear power to underpin supply to projects.