China is Building the World’s First Underwater, Wind-Fuelled Data Center

China is building what it calls the world’s first underwater data center (UDC), a $226 million project that will be powered entirely by wind energy.

As Anna Lagos reports in Wired, the UDC submerges servers in the ocean, using seawater as a cooling system. “This reduces the energy demand for cooling to less than 10 percent,” compared to the typical 50 percent or more used by data centers for cooling. “The project is environmentally sustainable in other ways. More than 95 percent of its electricity comes from offshore wind turbines. Overall, the designers estimate that this reduces energy consumption by 22.8 percent.”

Locating the center offshore also reduces land usage by over 90 percent. “The UDC’s 24-megawatts capacity is just the beginning. During the announcement for the project, the main contractors, including Shanghai Hicloud Technology, Shenergy Group, the Shanghai branch of China Telecom and INESA, signed a new agreement to launch another offshore wind-powered UDC project with a much more ambitious goal: 500 megawatts.”