Who needs a data center in space when you can float it offshore?

Power shortages in AI data centers have become so acute that people, not just Elon Musk, are talking about launching servers into space and giving them 24/7 access to solar power.

One startup thinks the ocean is a better place for them. Offshore wind power developer Aikido plans to submerge a 100-kilowatt demonstration data center off the coast of Norway this year. The small unit will live inside a submerged pod on a floating offshore wind turbine.

If all goes well, the company hopes to build a larger version and deploy it off the coast of Britain in 2028. That model would have a 15-megawatt to 18-megawatt turbine to power a 10-megawatt to 12-megawatt data center.

Moving offshore could solve several challenges. It’s obvious that you’re close to a power source because it’s overhead. Offshore winds are more consistent than onshore, and a decent battery can fill in any lulls.

Submerging data centers could potentially allay concerns from NIMBY groups (“not in my backyard”), who oppose locating data centers near their property due to concerns about noise and pollution.

Finally, cooling the server is easier by floating it in cold seawater. (Cooling is one particularly thorny issue, as orbital data centers must employ a variety of techniques in the vacuum of space.)

But while offshore data centers solve all the challenges, they also introduce a few more. The ocean is a harsh environment. A submerged server is not affected by waves, but it is not completely still, so it must be completely batted. Seawater is also corrosive, so all equipment, including containers, power supplies, and data connections, must be hardened against corrosion.

Aikido is not the first company to propose submerging data centers in seawater. Microsoft first broached the idea more than a decade ago and began testing it off the coast of Scotland in 2018 with some success. During the 25-month trial, only 6 servers out of more than 850 failed. (The data hall is filled with inert nitrogen gas, which may help explain the low server failure rate.)

Microsoft has acquired numerous patents over the years and open sourced it in 2021. But by 2024, the company had given the project a thorough review.