The rise of artificial intelligence is generating unprecedented demand for data centres, which has raised concerns about their growing energy consumption, water use and carbon footprint. These challenges are driving companies to seek locations beyond traditional land-based data centres.
Some developers are now exploring the ocean as a new location for AI infrastructure, hoping that underwater data centres can improve energy use and cooling efficiency while using less fresh water and land area than coastal buildings. However, moving servers to the ocean does not eliminate underlying environmental challenges, such as energy consumption and carbon emissions, and creates new concerns about damage to the marine environment.
In 2015, Microsoft launched a research project to explore the viability, benefits and challenges of underwater data centres. Part of that effort included installing a water-resistant data centre on the sea bed near the Orkney Islands of Scotland in 2018, which contained 864 servers connected to land by an undersea cable. After two years, Microsoft reported that servers in the underwater data centre failed at approximately one-eighth the rate of servers in comparable land-based data centres.
However, Microsoft ended the project in 2024 and decided not to build more underwater data centres. Instead, the company has focused on land-based data centres, which can be larger and easier to expand. Others have progressed: China built what could be the first wind-powered underwater data centre in Shanghai, which launched in June 2025 and began full commercial operations in May 2026. The project uses sea water as a coolant, reduces electricity consumption by at least 30% compared to traditional data centres and uses offshore wind turbines to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
Japan is testing a different approach with data centres in containers on floating platforms at sea that use sea water for cooling. In 2025, a data centre in shipping containers opened on a floating platform near Yokohama, with power coming from solar panels installed on the same platform. Singapore is also moving towards commercial-scale floating data centres, with infrastructure company Keppel beginning to build in 2026 a four-storey floating data centre scheduled to open in 2028. Ulsan, South Korea, began in 2025 to plan an underwater data centre that could house more than 100,000 servers and use 30% less energy than land-based centres.
In Maine, DeepGreen Western Passage has proposed a submersible AI data centre in the Bay of Fundy, powered by tidal turbines designed to take advantage of the area's strong tidal currents. In Portugal, the AI data centre SIN01 in Sines uses sea water from the Atlantic to cool its servers before returning it to the ocean. Maintenance, however, remains a significant challenge. If a computer fails under water, it cannot be repaired or replaced on site, and the entire sealed data centre module might need to be brought to the surface.
The main environmental concern about data centres in the ocean involves the sea water used for cooling. Discharging warm or hot water can potentially affect oxygen levels, pH and marine life in the surrounding waters.
