China starts operating a wind-powered underwater data center

In short: China is now operating an underwater data center near Shanghai that runs on offshore wind power.

What happened

China has begun operating what it calls the world’s first wind-powered underwater data center. It sits off the coast of Shanghai in the Lin-gang Special Zone, inside the China Pilot Free Trade Zone.

The project was built by HiCloud Technology and state-owned China Communications Construction. The reported investment was 1.6 billion yuan, about $236 million. The first phase is designed for an initial capacity of 24 megawatts.

Unlike a typical data center, this one is submerged about 10 meters underwater. Seawater is used as a natural cooling system, like placing a hot computer next to a cool breeze instead of running an air conditioner. The developers say cooling should use less than 10 percent of the facility’s energy, compared with roughly 40 to 50 percent in many land-based data centers.

The facility is designed to reach a power usage effectiveness (PUE), meaning how much extra power a data center needs beyond the computers themselves, of no more than 1.15. In simple terms, lower is better, and 1.0 would be perfect efficiency.

Why it matters

Data centers help run AI services, apps, and websites, but they can use huge amounts of electricity and often need lots of space and water. Chinese government statements say this project is designed to use more than 95 percent “green electricity,” cut energy use by 22.8 percent, and reduce land use by more than 90 percent. If this approach scales, it could be one way to power growing AI computing needs with less strain on cities and power grids.

Source: Wired