Google's patent application for a floating data center has been granted.

The search giant submitted an application for a floating facility that would use sea water for cooling and wave, motion or tidal energy for power.

The application said: "In one implementation, a system is disclosed that comprises a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-powered electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units. The computing units may be mounted in a plurality of crane-removable modules. The sea-powered electrical generator may comprise a wave-powered generator system, and may further include a plurality of motion-powered machines arranged in a grid and wired together. The wave-powered electrical generator system may likewise comprise one or more Pelamis machines."

The full detailed patent application is here.