2,000 server facility is powered by offshore wind, and cooled by the sea, making it one of the most efficient around
China places a massive AI data center underwater, effectively reducing its PUE
- China submerged nearly 2,000 AI servers beneath the ocean near Shanghai
- Seawater now cools Chinese AI servers without traditional industrial chillers operating continuously
- China connected offshore wind farms directly to an underwater artificial intelligence facility
China has begun commercial operations at an underwater data center where sealed server modules operate beneath the ocean using seawater for passive cooling.
The project combines offshore wind generation with subsea computing infrastructure to reduce electricity pressures linked to artificial intelligence expansion worldwide.
This underwater data center sits roughly 35 meters below the ocean surface near Shanghai’s Lingang Special Area and houses nearly 2,000 servers, including GPU clusters from China Telecom and LinkWise.
Stable ocean temperatures aid cooling
Chinese authorities and private engineering company HiCloud Technology jointly developed the $226 million installation.
This 24-megawatt installation processes artificial intelligence workloads, 5G services, and large-scale data annotation operations requiring substantial computing capacity.
Unlike conventional land-based facilities using industrial cooling systems, the underwater structure depends heavily on naturally stable ocean temperatures surrounding pressure-resistant server modules.
Cooling demands have increasingly become a major obstacle for modern data centers because advanced GPU clusters generate enormous heat during continuous computing operations.
https://www.techradar.com/pro/china-unveils-worlds-first-underwater-data-center-2-000-server-facility-is-powered-by-offshore-wind-and-cooled-by-the-sea-making-it-one-of-the-most-efficient-around?shem=rimspwouoe,
