Data centres are the hidden backbone of the internet. These rooms or buildings are packed to the brim with computers that handle communication and storage of digital data for companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. Pressed by the ever-increasing demands of speed and efficiency on a warming planet, an unlikely solution has emerged for some tech giants: heading underwater.

What is a data centre?

The internet is a network of communication, which allows a user with a device to access websites, which represent the data that is stored on the internet. It’s important for companies with internet-connected services to have physical information storage so their customers can access it. Data centres act as a dedicated location housing the computers that run web applications and communicate with other users on a global network.

The earliest data centers can be dated back to far earlier than the internet age, beginning with the massive computers of the 1940s. Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) — the first general-purpose digital computer — weighed 27.2 metric tonnes and stored its large components used for data processing and storage in one massive room.

As the efficiency and complexity of computers skyrocketed over the next few decades, the facilities they were housed in had to follow. A room with one massive computer became a room with many small computers designed to store as much data as physically possible. These computers, now providing internet-connected services to users, are often called servers. 

If you’ve ever opened dozens of tabs simultaneously on your laptop or used a particularly old device, you know that computers can get very hot. Heat management is incredibly important for modern technology, as a computer handling many tasks simultaneously generates more heat, which will quickly damage the delicate parts of a device if not dissipated. This concern is particularly important for data centres, which house a large number of simultaneously operating servers.

So how does a data centre avoid a fiery death? The most common solutions are surprisingly straightforward: either air conditioning and liquid coolant piped directly to their servers to prevent them from overheating. 

But the energy cost of keeping these facilities’ temperature cool is growing, as the demand for AI and other processor-heavy technologies skyrockets. According to a report released in April by the International Energy Agency, energy usage of data centres will more than double their energy usage from 415 TW to 945 TW by 2030.

A new solution beneath the water

As outlandish as it sounds, storing a bunch of computers underwater is not a new idea. In 2015, Microsoft launched an experimental program, Project Natick, to design a data centre that would operate on the ocean floor without human intervention. The cold, stable temperatures of the ocean water would improve the reliability of the data centre’s operations and make it more efficient to cool. 

By 2020, Microsoft reported promising results: the experimental underwater data centre had operated independently for two years with reduced cooling costs and fewer server and cable failures than typical data centres. Years later, Microsoft has not continued the project; instead, using it as a jumping-off point for research on liquid data centre cooling.

Now, Microsoft has turned its focus elsewhere, but in Shanghai, a 317.5 million CAD underwater data centre is being built by Shanghai HiCloud Technology. The project will be powered by wind turbines and claims to reduce electrical demand by more than 30 per cent, aiming to provide China with sustainable data centres in an age of technological innovation.

Despite the benefits of underwater data centres for energy usage, researchers have cautioned against several potential issues with the new technology. One 2024 study, by cybersecurity researchers from the University of Florida and the University of Electro-Communications, found that underwater data centres are vulnerable to acoustic attacks. The attacks can destroy their sensitive servers with sound waves carried by the surrounding water. Other researchers, for example in Scientific American, have raised environmental concerns about the data centres increasing water temperatures or harming wildlife.

The future of underwater data centres is unknown, but one thing is for certain: the modern world as we know it relies on the infrastructure of the internet to keep up with ever-growing demand for computational power. Making sustainable and efficient data centres is critical to building a future where nothing gets too hot, especially our planet.