- Panthalassa Ocean-3 generates power and processes AI workloads directly at sea
- The movement of the ocean is replacing fossil fuels as the primary energy source
- No cables, no anchors, just autonomous systems riding constant waves
Washington State startup Panthalassa is building self-driving floating platforms that generate electricity from ocean waves and use it to power AI data centers at sea.
The platform, called Ocean-3, has units that have no anchor, need no fuel, and have no cables connecting them to land.
Each platform rises and falls with the waves, forcing water through an internal turbine to generate electricity.
The article continues below
This is how a floating hydroelectric dam works without cables
The generated power then drives onboard computing hardware that processes AI tasks on the spot, with results sent back via satellite.
“The ocean is truly limitless in terms of how much energy is available,” said Garth Sheldon-Coulson, CEO and co-founder of Panthalassa. “It really will be the cheapest energy on the planet.”
Ocean-3 acts more like a floating hydroelectric dam. When waves lift the platform, water inside a pipe is forced upwards into a ballast tank.
This water then flows into a rotating turbine which generates electricity. The system is self-driving and moves like a large Roomba instead of being tethered to the seabed.
Multiple units installed together can act as a single floating data center with no carbon emissions and no load on local power grids.
“When you deploy many of our systems, they basically work together as a data center,” Sheldon-Coulson said. “So we see it as a really good alternative to data centers on land.”
Due to high electricity consumption, which increases CO2 emissions and household electricity bills, the industry has been looking for an alternative to land-based AI data centers.
There have been discussions of underwater data centers as well as data centers in space, but none of these appear to be near-term plans.
As demand for computers grows and traditional power grids collapse, Panthalassa offers an alternative that bypasses land acquisition and dependence on fossil fuels.
Construction of the Ocean-3 units is already underway and Sheldon-Coulson expects them to be operational offshore in August this year.
The company eventually hopes to be able to install thousands of these platforms far out at sea.
Funding is no problem, but will it hold up in a roaring sea?
Panthalassa has all the private funding it needs because AI companies are eager for faster and cleaner ways to get power than building data centers on land.
“It’s really exciting that we’re working on something that’s coming at just the right time,” Sheldon-Coulson said, “in a way that’s much cleaner, much more sustainable and quite scalable.”
Although the concept is elegant, there is one uncertainty: the sea. It has a way of breaking things that works perfectly in tests.
Saltwater corrosion, biofouling and storm damage are not hypothetical problems for marine equipment; they are daily realities.
The Ocean-3 platforms will have to survive hurricanes, salt spray and years of continuous motion without mechanical failure.
Satellite links also introduce latency that may not suit all AI workloads, and the cost of fixing a broken generator in the middle of the ocean will be huge.
Panthalassa has proven that wave energy can power a floating platform, but proving it can do so reliably for years is a much more difficult challenge.
Still, for an industry desperate for power and willing to try just about anything, the ocean offers something no land-based data center can match: unlimited space and a power source that never stops moving.
Via CBS News
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds.
