Plans to deploy an underwater data center in South Korea have taken a step forward.
The Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) recently announced it had signed a business agreement for cooperation on 'Eco-friendly underwater data center complex construction technology research' with Ulsan Metropolitan City, GS Engineering & Construction, and POSCO.
The agreement aims to develop technology for building an underwater data center complex with 100,000 servers on the seabed.
KIOST president Lee Hee-seung said: “KIOST is expected to take the lead in developing related technologies to build an eco-friendly underwater data center, thereby strengthening the competitiveness of the data industry for carbon neutrality and energy conservation, and contributing to revitalizing the local economy.”
The companies aim to secure a budget for a national research project on the development of underwater data centers; develop core technologies for underwater data center design and construction as well as operation and maintenance; and install and verify underwater data center test beds.
Plans for an underwater data center were first mooted by KIOST and Ulsan back in April 2022 as part of a wider underwater city project funded by the South Korean government. Some 23 companies are reportedly involved, including SK Telecom and Lotte Engineering.
The joint research team plans to complete the detailed design of the main module with research spaces, data center module, and residence module by the end of this year.
The first underwater module is set to be deployed 30m down in the sea off Sinri Port, Seosaeng-myeon, Ulju-gun, Ulsan Metropolitan City. Three people are set to reside in the underwater complex.
POSCO is a South Korean steel manufacturer. GS E&C is a civil engineering contractor.
Underwater data centers continue to pique interest
While it continues to be a niche part of the industry, there are a number of underwater data center projects occurring globally.
The KIOST project differs from the rest, however, in that it is looking to also submerge people in the wider platform, rather than deploy a lights-out type module.
Chinese company HiCloud says it has underwater data center modules operating commercially, having installed its servers 35m deep on the seabed off the coast of Lingshui Li County, Hainan Province, last year. It plans to deploy 100 modules in total.
Data center startup Subsea Cloud already claims to operate 13,500 servers in underwater locations in Asia, which will be rented to AI companies and those in the gaming industry. With permits secured, it hopes to be up and running next year, and says its servers do not impact the ocean’s temperature.
Californian startup NetworkOcean is planning to sink a 500kW data center contained in a capsule designed by the company into San Francisco Bay.
Microsoft is the highest-profile player in the space, but has seemingly dropped its interest in the concept.
The cloud giant's Project Natick saw a subsea data center deployed off the coast of Scotland in 2018.
Speaking to DCD earlier this year, however, Noelle Walsh, the head of the company’s Cloud Operations + Innovation (CO+I) division, said the project was over. The company open-sourced a number of patents relating to submerged data centers in 2021.
