The first commercial data center below sea level is scheduled to be built in China by 2025. The concept offers numerous advantages.
Two nitrogen-filled cylinders containing server technology are sunk in the South China Sea. One hundred are expected to follow by 2025. (Source: Tang Fei/chinadaily)
The enormous energy consumption of modern data centers is often criticized. A large part of the energy to be generated is used for cooling or for the waste heat of the often numerous servers.
Various companies, including Microsoft, have already had the idea of sinking these servers directly below the waterline in the sea. But Microsoft’s Project Natick was not a resounding success either.
With the Hainan Undersea Data Center, a data center is now to be built 35 meters deep in the South China Sea, reports the Chinese publication China Daily. The main goal and purpose of the project is to reduce the energy required for operation and to save property space.
Since, among other things, cooling can be kept much simpler, annual savings of 122 million kilowatt hours of electricity should be possible compared to conventional data centers.
As in the Microsoft project, white containers weighing tons are used. According to the information, a single container weighs 1,3000 tons. To prevent the server technology from rusting, the containers are filled with nitrogen.
The expected lifespan of the system is 25 years. However, the installed server technology is unlikely to remain up-to-date for that long. Two of these 1,300-ton cylinders have already been anchored to the seabed. By 2025 there should be a hundred such modules.
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