China has a groundbreaking plan for managing the overwhelming volumes of digital data created daily: submerging data centers underwater. These centers, essentially colossal collections of computer storage, store everything from music playlists to emails.
Data centers are massive computer storage warehouses, containing everything from your Spotify playlists to your Gmail messages. According to China Daily, although installing these giant underwater server farm units is not an easy task, it brings two major benefits.
First, it saves substantial land space. By 2025, the plan is to install 100 of these underwater data center blocks, occupying approximately 68,000 square meters (732,000 square feet) of construction space, equivalent to nearly 13 football fields. This frees up land for other uses while the data centers reside 35 meters (115 feet) beneath the sea.
Another crucial benefit is the natural cooling effect of seawater, which helps regulate temperatures around the operating data centers. This cooling effect could save an estimated 122 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, equivalent to the average power consumption of 160,000 Chinese citizens.
However, the challenges are considerable. These 1,300-ton units must endure pressure and corrosion from seawater. Additionally, the impact of these massive electronic structures on marine ecosystems remains unclear.
Each data center unit can process an impressive amount of data, managing 4 million high-definition images every 30 seconds—equivalent to the computational power of 60,000 PCs or 6 million computers if all 100 centers are operational.
While the concept isn’t entirely novel—Microsoft explored underwater data centers in 2016—the complexities involved have hindered widespread implementation until now.
The Hainan Undersea Data Center, established off the coast of Sanya in China’s Hainan province, is a collaboration between the government and private enterprises. Designed to endure 25 years, these data centers signify an innovative approach to managing the energy-intensive demands of rapidly evolving technologies like AI.
This initiative underscores the growing energy consumption required to support our data-driven world and emphasizes the need for continuous innovation to meet these escalating demands.
