The ability crunch for AI knowledge facilities has gotten so extreme that folks — not simply Elon Musk — are speaking about launching servers into space to allow them to entry solar energy 24/7.
One startup thinks the ocean is a greater place for them. Offshore wind developer Aikido is planning to submerge a 100-kilowatt demonstration knowledge middle off the coast of Norway this yr. The small unit will reside within the submerged pods of a floating offshore wind turbine.
If all goes nicely, the corporate hopes to construct a bigger model to deploy off the coast of the UK in 2028. That mannequin will sport a 15 megawatt to 18 megawatt turbine that can feed a ten megawatt to 12 megawatt knowledge middle.
The transfer offshore might clear up a couple of challenges. Proximity to energy is an apparent one, for the reason that supply will sit overhead. Winds offshore are extra constant than onshore, and a modest battery might bridge any lulls.
Submerged knowledge facilities might remove issues from NIMBY teams — “not in my yard” — who oppose knowledge facilities close to their properties over noise and and air pollution issues.
Lastly, by floating in chilly seawater, cooling the servers can be a less complicated proposition. (Cooling is one notably vexing problem for orbital knowledge facilities, since they should make use of totally different methods within the vacuum of area.)
However for all of the challenges offshore knowledge facilities clear up, they introduce a couple of extra. The ocean is a harsh setting. Whereas submerged servers wouldn’t be battered by waves, in addition they wouldn’t be fully stationary, in order that they’d must be totally battened down. Seawater can also be corrosive, so any tools, together with the container and energy and knowledge connections, will must be hardened towards it.
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Aikido isn’t the primary firm to suggest sinking knowledge facilities in seawater. Microsoft first floated the thought over a decade in the past, and in 2018 it launched an experiment off the coast of Scotland, which was modestly profitable. Solely six of greater than 850 servers failed within the 25-month trial. (The information corridor was crammed with inert nitrogen gasoline, which could assist clarify the servers’ low failure charges.)
Microsoft accrued various patents through the years, which it open-sourced in 2021. However by 2024, the corporate had deep-sixed the venture.
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