Under the sea, Microsoft tests a datacenter that’s quick to deploy, could provide internet connectivity for years - Stories
news.microsoft.com

Microsoft are looking at putting datacenters under the ocean, which sounds like a really good idea to cool them but I can’t help but think a couple decades from now it’s going to start causing us problems

  • @LongbottomLeaf
    14•11 months ago

    The system pipes seawater directly through the radiators on the back of each of the 12 server racks and back out into the ocean.

    How much is it going to heat the local area? Along with disk and rack design testing, are they also testing how this thing affects wildlife?

    The appeal is understandable: proximity to population centers, temperature, security, scaling with renewable tech, etc.

    I wonder if international waters is their end goal. Self-reliant, off-grid data centers that only abide by MS rules.

    • RickRussell_CA
      35•11 months ago

      Everything has to be cooled, it’s a question of efficiency. Directly exchanging the heat into cold water is arguably better than expending fossil fuels to generate electricity to pump the heat out of your servers and into the atmosphere. You get multiple losses with current technology: fossil fuel efficiency losses, electric line losses, air conditioning efficiency losses. And the additional electrical generation dumps more CO2.

      • @LongbottomLeaf
        3•11 months ago

        Oh no doubt. It makes a great deal of sense.

        I’m just curious what the actual heat output is (avg, min, max, in vs out), and what the environmental impact is.

        Will there be biofouling because the warm seawater is desirable?

        Will it even be viable offshore from places like Miami?

        Can it produce too much heat for the local environment? Probably not one, but what about after this scale-up with renewables like the article mentions?

        At what scale would it begin to disrupt things like the AMOC?