- China submerged nearly 2,000 AI servers under the sea near Shanghai
- Seawater now cools Chinese AI servers without traditional industrial coolers running continuously
- China linked offshore wind farms directly to an underwater artificial intelligence facility
China has begun commercial operation of an underwater data center where sealed server modules operate under the sea using seawater for passive cooling.
The project combines offshore wind generation with undersea computing infrastructure to reduce electricity pressure associated with artificial intelligence expansion worldwide.
Located about 35 meters below sea level near Shanghai’s Lingang Special Area, this underwater data center houses nearly 2,000 servers, including the GPU clusters from China Telecom and LinkWise.
Stable ocean temperatures help with cooling
Chinese authorities and private engineering firm HiCloud Technology jointly developed the $226 million installation.
This 24-megawatt installation handles artificial intelligence workloads, 5G services and large data annotation operations that require significant computing capacity.
Unlike conventional land-based facilities that use industrial cooling systems, the underwater structure relies heavily on naturally stable sea temperatures around pressure-resistant server modules.
Cooling requirements have increasingly become a major obstacle for modern data centers because advanced GPU clusters generate enormous heat during continuous computing operations.
According to Chinese media reports, the underwater installation achieved a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating below 1.15, lower than the industry average, which hovers around 1.5.
A lower PUE indicates that more electricity is supporting computing tasks directly rather than ancillary systems such as cooling equipment, ventilation and infrastructure maintenance.
Industry analysts have increasingly looked into alternative cooling methods as the expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure continues to put pressure on national power grids and the availability of electricity.
The Shanghai project also reflects China’s broader efforts to integrate renewable energy generation directly into digital infrastructure.
Offshore wind farms connected to the subsea facility reportedly provide a significant portion of the operational electricity, reducing their reliance on conventional grid-based energy supplies.
Previous projects faced bottlenecks
Authorities described the project as the “world’s first” offshore wind-powered underwater data center operating on a commercial scale, although underwater data processing experiments already existed elsewhere.
Microsoft has previously tested submerged data centers capsules through its Project Natick initiative, conducted near Scotland and California, before ceasing commercial development efforts.
These earlier experiments nevertheless suggested that underwater systems could experience lower hardware failure rates because sealed environments limited exposure to oxygen and temperature fluctuations.
However, large-scale subsea installations continue to face significant engineering issues involving corrosion, pressure sealing, subsea cable durability, and long-term hardware availability in emergencies.
Replacing faulty equipment underwater is still significantly more complicated than conventional facilities, where technicians can physically inspect servers and infrastructure within minutes.
Operators therefore rely heavily on remote monitoring technologies, modular sealed systems and redundant infrastructure designed to minimize direct maintenance requirements throughout the life of the operation.
Similar concepts continue to emerge globally as governments and technology companies explore unconventional approaches to handling AI infrastructure requirements without overwhelming terrestrial resources.
Recent reports described how startup Panthalassa, backed by Peter Thiel, is developing floating data centers using wave energy and seawater cooling systems.
Although subsea facilities can significantly reduce cooling energy consumption, long-term operational reliability remains uncertain because large commercial installations remain relatively uncommon worldwide.
Via Tom’s Hardware
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