In late 2023, China launched a commercial underwater data center off the coast of Hainan, and they just followed it up with a massive 24-megawatt underwater facility near Shanghai. It sits on the seafloor, holds thousands of AI-training servers, uses the surrounding seawater as a natural, passive cooling jacket, and gets 95% of its power from offshore wind farms. ​The Pioneer: Microsoft actually pioneered this with Project Natick, sinking a container-sized data center off the coast of Scotland for two years. They found that the servers were actually more reliable underwater because the environment was cold, stable, and filled with nitrogen instead of oxygen (which prevents corrosion). (Note: Microsoft eventually wrapped up the experiment to focus on land-based designs, but China took the concept and ran with it) Thoughts on this technology? #AI #datacenters #china #technology https://share.google/XCFILu3wN337YRutJ