The artificial intelligence boom is driving unprecedented demand for data centers, raising concerns about their growing , and . These challenges are making companies look beyond traditional land-based data centers.
Some developers are now exploring the ocean as a new location for AI infrastructure in the hopes that underwater data centers could improve than onshore buildings.
My focuses on the societal, organizational and , particularly and the digital infrastructure – including – that supports its development and deployment. I see underwater data centers as a promising new approach for supporting the growth of AI.
But moving servers into the ocean does not make other underlying environmental challenges such as energy consumption and carbon emissions disappear. And it creates new concerns about harm to the marine environment, as well as questions about how these data centers can be regulated – and how companies can maintain and expand them if needed. Whether underwater data centers can become sustainable alternatives to traditional data centers depends on solving these economic, technical and environmental problems.
The rise of ocean-based AI infrastructure
In 2015, Microsoft launched a research project to explore the of underwater data centers. Part of that effort included setting up a near Scotland’s Orkney Islands in 2018. It contained 864 servers and was connected to shore by an underwater cable.
After two years, Microsoft reported that the servers in the underwater data center failed at about . The company is still studying the possible reasons but hypothesizes that in a sealed underwater environment the equipment is less exposed to oxygen, humidity and temperature fluctuations – as well as less jostling from people working to replace broken components.
However, Microsoft and chose . The company didn’t say why, but others’ analyses suggest the , including the need for environmental permits, as well as a desire for faster upgrades and replacements for the computer equipment inside.
Instead the company has focused on land-based data centers, which can be larger and easier to expand, and also equipment.
Others have moved ahead, though. China built what may be the world’s first wind-powered underwater data center in Shanghai. The facility launched in June 2025 and began full commercial operations in .
The project uses rather than have to refrigerate fresh water, reducing the electricity required to cool the computers. It uses at least electricity than traditional data centers, and offshore wind turbines reduce reliance on fossil fuels and cut the data center’s carbon emissions.
Japan is testing a different approach: Data centers housed in containers on floating platforms at sea can use seawater for cooling, have unobstructed conditions for solar panels and wind turbines, and reduce demand for land. In 2025, a opened on a floating platform near Yokohama. Its power comes from , with batteries providing energy storage. The test will .
Singapore is also moving toward commercial-scale floating data centers. In 2026, infrastructure company Keppel began building a , scheduled to open in 2028. The project will use seawater for cooling, reducing reliance on treated water and improving cooling efficiency. And the fact that it floats means it won’t take up any of Singapore’s limited land availability.
In 2025, Ulsan, South Korea, began planning an underwater data center that could house and use 30% less power than land-based centers by using seawater for cooling.
In Maine, DeepGreen Western Passage has proposed a in the Bay of Fundy, powered by tidal turbines designed to harness the area’s strong tidal currents.
Land-based data centers could also take advantage of seawater cooling. In Portugal, the SIN01 AI data center in Sines uses its servers before returning it to the ocean.
The promise of ocean-based data centers
These various approaches offer ways to reduce for powering data centers’ computers and , as well as using .
The distance from people’s homes could also be an advantage for data centers in or on the ocean. A Gallup poll in March 2026 found that oppose building AI data centers in their communities. However, more than half of the world’s population lives of a coast. Underwater could be another way to keep data centers for speedy service.
Maintenance, though, is a major challenge. If a computer fails underwater, it . The entire sealed data center module may need to be brought to the surface, even if just one computer needs work.
Can the ocean sustain AI?
The involves the seawater used for cooling. Discharging warm or hot water can potentially affect in the surrounding waters.
That heat is already apparent at the few seaborne data centers now operating. HiCloud, the engineering contractor for China’s Hainan underwater data center, has reported a temperature increase of (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the seawater near the facility. SIN01 in Sines, Portugal, also returns seawater .
Many marine species depend on stable water temperatures for breeding, feeding and migration, raising concerns that heat released by multiple underwater data centers could create . And the ocean is already under pressure. UNESCO, the United Nations agency for international cooperation, including in conservation, estimates that about are already degraded or used unsustainably.
The along with the atmosphere, without additional waste heat from data centers. That additional heat is already , seagrasses and other aspects of the marine food web. As that , ocean waters will be less useful for cooling electronic equipment in some regions.
Underwater data centers could help AI grow while easing some of the pressure on land, energy and water. But the real test is whether the ocean can become AI’s next computing frontier without becoming its next environmental problem.
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