Why not just build all the datacenters in the arctic? What am I missing?
MS servers are undersee since time, nothing new
https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/sustainability/project-natick-underwater-datacenter/
In 2024, they cancelled it.
I think that they will return to it, due to the growing need, also because of the growing use of LLM everywhere, which is a big energy problem and costs only for the cooling. The chinese saw it that the best manner is to use submarine servers, which no need energy for the cooling, saving a lot of money. The energy need of cooling large data centers are a lot of MW + of what the need is from the servers. The only other alternative are datacenters in polar regions, done already by nordic countries. The drawback of submarine servers is the accessibility, but with the saved money in energy it’s a minor problem. Independent of political opinions, western countries can learn a lot of chinese, we look to much on lobby interests of big corporations, which often break down the developement of new tecnologies.
thats not exactly a novel approach.
because the oceans can’t warm fast enough.
More energy being spent cooling data centers on land ultimately heats up the whole system more, including the oceans. This is why you should pay attention in your physics class at school kids.
The heat of even huge datacenters in the ocean is irrelevant, compared to the caused by the energy generation needed for cooling datacenters on land. Energy needed for cooling in submarine servers is zero.
The project is set to use 30% less electricity and is powered by wind. Better than the Western approach of building data centers in deserts to waste scarce water for cooling for sure
I am far from expert on this, but I’m not sure that they will be sufficient to change the oceanic temps compared to the wider worldwide greenhouse effect. Every data centre is already adding heat and most are reliant upon fossil fuels. The AI operations excessively so. Definitely need to do the works of a job on climate change.
