You read that right, an underwater data center has been created by Microsoft. Yes, that Microsoft.
The so called “submarine data center” is a giant tube packed with a whopping 864 servers. The ocean will offer natural cooling to the data center that sits on the ocean floor off the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland. Cooling is one of the most expensive components of a traditional data center, so this renewable aspect of cooling should cut down on a major cost component.
The tube is about the size of a shipping container and is designed to the deployed rapidly off the coast of major cities allowing for more expansion of cloud capabilities. What’s not yet clear is how any hardware or power failures would be addressed in a large tube that sits about 100 feet below the ocean surface.
Microsoft plans to monitor this new prototype data center for a year, to determine it’s future viability. While Microsoft is touting the renewable energy aspects of this development, one does have to wonder if there will be any heat bleeding from the tube and any ambient noise coming from within that could disrupt the marine ecosystem where these tubes are placed. It will be interesting to see what is learned over the coming year.
Here is a link to more details, including videos and photos of the data center. It’s worth a look and read.