The world's first underwater data center has been built in the waters off Orkney in Scotland.
The data center was designed by Marine Current Turbines, building a tidal energy farm in partnership with Scottish Power. The company is leasing a section of the seabed from the Crown Estate to create a site for its turbines.
Underwater Data Center Built to Keep Servers Cool and Safe
The company plans to build a data center on top of its turbine platforms, which will sit 60 meters below the water's surface. The structure will be powered entirely by tidal energy generated by its turbines.
In addition to being completely self-sufficient and off the grid, it won't impact local marine life because no diesel generators will be used. It also means that there will be no interference with radio signals transmitted through the sea, making it ideal for military use.
A new underwater data center located off the coast of Norway is designed to keep servers cool and safe.
The data center is built on the seafloor in about 80 feet of water. It's about 60 feet long and 30 feet wide and was built by Norwegian company NorSap.
NorSap said it designed the facility to use as little energy as possible. The building's shell is made from an aerogel that absorbs heat from the Sun, then releases it at night when temperatures are cooler.
The facility also uses a unique cooling system that draws seawater up through a pipe into the building to absorb heat from servers inside. The water then circulates back out into the ocean through another pipe that keeps it cool enough to return to its original temperature by the time it reaches the surface.
The company said it plans more underwater data centers in other parts, including one-off Scotland, the Orkney Islands near Iceland, and another off Japan's Okinawa Prefecture.
Underwater Data Center Advantage
Underwater Data Centers are considered one of the most secure places for data storage. They are completely isolated from natural disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, and even tsunamis. This is because they are located deep in the ocean where no human being can reach them.
The major advantage of underwater data centers is that they can help improve internet service providers' reliability and performance.
The cost may be high, but it will be worth spending on this system. Many companies have already started using this kind of technology to store their data safely, away from any damage caused by natural disasters.
The Undersea Data Center is the future of data centers because it offers many advantages over land-based facilities.
1. Underwater data centers are more energy efficient because they are cooled naturally by ocean water and do not need air conditioning. This means they operate at a lower temperature, which reduces energy costs.
2. The risk of fire damage is reduced since there is no oxygen in the ocean. Additionally, a fire would not spread as rapidly as in a traditional building because there is no oxygen available to feed the flames.
3. The risk of flooding is also significantly reduced since the data center is located underwater, where it cannot be damaged by rain or high winds (even hurricanes).
4. Security is better maintained since anyone trying to break into an underwater data center will not be able to swim down and retrieve any equipment or data that may be stored there.
The technology required for building an underwater data center is relatively inexpensive compared to other options, like building a data center in space or on another planet. It costs around $1 million per kW/h to run a typical data center today. An underwater data center can reduce this cost by up to 50% because it needs less power due to its unique design features that enable efficient cooling methods such as ocean water circulation systems or seawater cooling tanks.
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Conclusion
Data centers consume more than 2% of the world's electricity, according to the Global Energy Consumption Database (GECD). According to one recent report, reducing the number of servers needed for a given workload can reduce energy requirements by up to 90%.
Lower cooling bills are another benefit of underwater data centers. Traditional data centers need a lot of energy to keep air-conditioning systems running at peak performance. If you can cool your server racks using seawater instead of air conditioning, those costs are significantly reduced — and could even be eliminated if you were able to use cold seawater instead of warm or hot water.
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