Could Underwater Data Centres Be the Future of Data Storage?

The interest in underwater data centres is growing due to Microsoft’s successful deployment of Project Natick several years ago. Subsea Cloud, has joined Microsoft and has deployed data centre pods in the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and more recently the North Sea. Now the company is discussing launching the underwater data centre in the UK.

What is an underwater data centre?

The concept behind an underwater data centre is simple: IT infrastructure, such as servers, are installed in a water-tight vessel and then submerged underwater, however, the process is more complex than it seems.

The idea would bring many benefits including lower costs and sustainability, however they would need to overcome steep challenges.

Maintenance: Maintaining an underwater data centre is an extremely challenging task. Whenever a component requires replacement, it becomes exponentially more difficult to send personnel underwater to execute the task or bring the data centre to the surface, compared to land-based data centres.

Security: Underwater data centres could be prone to attacks, which are likely to find it easier to target a facility located at the bottom of the sea.

Energy: While the idea of sourcing energy from renewable offshore sources is appealing, it’s important to note that these sources are not always reliable. For instance, offshore wind farms often stop working on calm days, which could be catastrophic if the data centre relies solely on them. Therefore, to ensure uninterrupted power supply, it’s still necessary to connect underwater data centres to network cables. This would ensure that the network remains functional at all times but at the cost of paying a high price to lay the cables underwater, this would not be practical. The data centre would consume the same amount of energy as the traditional method due to this.

It’s due to these challenges that underwater data centres remain a much-discussed but little-implemented idea. The barriers to entry in this field are high, but we should recognize new technological advancements.