It’s slightly less stupid than data centers in space I suppose. But I still find it pretty weird.
You will have to be tethered to land anyway. Properly high bandwidth networking as you would usually see to connect a data center (on the order of a dozen terabits per second) only exists through fiber optic cables. I’m sure of this point, because optical networking is my day-job, though we only run 400 Gbit/s links on the fastest edges since we’re a small national network.
As for power, well there are 80 MW ship engines (e.g. Wärtsilä-Sulzer RT-flex96C, which has even been built in Korea under license before), so it’s not impossible I suppose. But if you are tethered, then the country you’re tethered to will probably forbid you from burning bunker fuel for 80 MW on its coast. At which point you’d be reduced to running clean diesel or something. That I expect would make the power more costly than just tethering to an electric grid
So now we have a big barge rather than a ship. What do you really save then? I guess the price of the land? And you gain access to copious amounts of saltwater, so you can do closed loop cooling with freshwater, and do the secondary heat exchange to the ocean. But you could do that by building on the coast too. Okay I guess you might gain tsunami security over a coastal building.
If this is a real proposal why don’t they tell us the material advantages they expect, rather than making us guess?
Sovereignty.
Country gets a new hostile government or prsident? Guess we’ll just sail our datacenters somewhere else
Heating up random parts of the ocean, can only good happen!
The amount of heat is going to be negligible for the ocean, especially compared to a permanent structure pumping heat into the ground or a neighborhood. I’m more worried about how they’re powering the things. Probably some fossil fuel.
What a beautiful coincidence.
I am building ethically sourced, renewable, solar powered torpedoes, and I will not be seeking regulatory approval.
because the ocean warming and inevitable collapse of the gulf stream wasnt happening fast enough, apparently.
And less tax and worker protection laws in international waters.
Wait, isn’t this what happened in Snowcrash?
I always kinda wondered how biblical ocean boiling would come about.
The ark had all the hardware, a pair of each. Switches, routers, firewalls, …
Terrible article. Does not answer the “why” question. What is the advantage? All it says is that “Seasides can ease the pains of giant mainland AI date centers”. Is it just skirting around taxes and rules, like a floating casino? The ship would have a shoreside power connection or power itself as well apparently. Would the ships generators be subject to the same emission requirements as shoreside plants?
Seems like just a floating barge that will not really be out at sea, just sitting in protected bays or up waterways. Cooling water, would have to use a closed circuit freshwater system with heat exchangers cooling it with saltwater. That would consume less water than the evaporation cooling method, but still is not listed a possible reason.
Ships are expensive. What is the reason for floating a data center? Cheaper than land near big cities? Less regulations? Less taxes? Cooling water? Cheaper electricity?
They’re doing it to grab the headlines away from Solar Roadways!!
Some large companies have been experimenting with underwater data centres for years. i remember reading about a microsoft one like 10 years ago.
Yeah but those were not on ships.
Ironic, considering AI is built on piracy
Im somewhat surprised nobody has mentioned how corrosive salt water is. This likely would have to be some platform like an oil rig with power and internet via cables. So why not buy Sealand and build it out? Still lots oft Saltwater in the Wind and offshore but no need to have it floating around in rough waters.
The nation of Sealand cannot be bought!
Cheaper to build and maintain probably. You can dock a ship for a while but you need to bring manpower to a platform
Poseidon plz 🥺
Makes sense. Leaves our potable water alone and keeps the fuckers out of sight. They could even put in wind turbines to power the fucking things.
The warming of the water is likely an issue for marine life and ecosystems
Pirates are gonna have an awesome day. I will buy all the stuff they can steal from it.
I’ll take some cpus and a few gpus. And 1tb for ram. What do you mean 200$ for 1tb of ram?? The last pirate said 100$!
Is this the sign of the upcoming pirate age?
The real One Piece is the datacenters Samsung made along the way
We’re sorry Mr Robertoe, the pirates, they stole your data. You should change your password right away!
No it’s a sign of delusion by these companies and governments.
This seems like the sort of idea that on the surface sounds really innovative and “outside the box” but will sink like a stone when put into action
Data centers in space, data centers on ships… it’s likely just an attempt to avoid laws and oversight.
Or just a way for someone that owns a rocket company to get a trillion dollars. Maybe someone making ships can get a cool $100B from
suckersinvestors.In the dot com bubble it was a running joke where someone would take any business idea and and add “on the internet” onto it. “We’ll sell dogfood… on the internet!” Boom! A billion dollars in VC money.
So now it’s take anything and add “using AI” to it. This is even better, it’s not just “using AI” it’s “and put a bunch of AI chips on it.”
“We build ships.” Yawn. “We build ships and put a bunch of AI chips on it” Ok, here’s your $100 Billion!
¿Por qué no los dos? You can excite the fascist libertarians and still get the attention of the people who blow their load the moment someone adds “AI” to a product.
And just like all the libertarian attempts to escape the horrors of being taxed and regulated by taking to the sea this too will fail catastrophically
Bears will eat the data centres, somehow
We’ll get to see REAL digital piracy on the high seas!
Would you kindly stop being so pessimistic?
No, no I don’t think I will
Seems you did not mean to make a BioShock reference. oh well, worth a try =)
Did you just vicariously woosh me via myself?
I… I’m not sure? Now I am confused, ¿?¿
Whatever the case may be, would you kindly have a great day now? ;)
Connection will suck. Imagine this thing and its delicate hardware hit by 10m high waves all the time.
These datacenters will probably be used for AI training, or they will get their own ocean cables.
It’ll have to have a satellite connection and that will go out if there’s a storm.
will sink like a stone
Microsoft already tested underwater data centres ages ago.
That makes a lot more sense to me, keeping something on the bottom of the ocean is much easier that keeping something floating on it
Yes, but I think maintenance is easier on the surface.
We have an opening for a system admin.
Requirements:
- Experience maintaining production servers at scale
- In depth knowledge of security best practices, prevention, mitigation
- SCUBA certification
- Aquatic self-defense skills
You know what to do, killer orcas
You might call them Killer Whales.
Killer Luigi?
I’ve seen pictures of data centers with parking lots full of cars. Are they going to ferry people to and from work each shift?
Probably like an oil rig rotation. You live and work for a contracted period of time on the boat, then you cycle off with someone else every few months or so.
That makes sense, but it’s also incredibly unappealing.
People on oil rigs aren’t necessarily the most skilled in their field. They still make well above median income because they put up with shit like this. Im sure something similar would develop. Would you sign up for a 12 week contract if it paid $60k?
