What do you need to know
- Microsoft no longer has any active underwater data centers.
- The company experimented with underwater data centers as part of its Natick project.
- Underwater data centers experienced one-eighth the failure rate compared to counterparts on land.
- Microsoft explained that it will use what it learned from the project in other cases.
With the heat dome causing temperatures to rise in many parts of the world, jumping into the frigid sea may sound refreshing. But if you jump into the cold waters, you won’t have Microsoft’s underwater data center company. The tech giant began testing underwater data centers in the North Sea in 2018, but no longer has any active underwater data centers.
The underwater data centers were part of Microsoft’s Project Natick, which aimed to test the feasibility of placing data centers underwater. The experiment saw giant tubes placed 117 feet below the surface of the Scottish sea. The unique data center environment allowed Microsoft to test several factors, such as filling the data center with nitrogen instead of oxygen.
Humans and machines have very different needs when it comes to creating an environment for optimal performance. Oxygen is essential for humans, but it can damage computers. Temperature requirements also vary widely between humans and machines. Keeping the data centers separate from people also prevented anyone from bumping into the components.
Project Natick has seen interesting results, including underwater data centers with one-eighth the failure rate of data centers with the same components on land.
While the results looked promising, Microsoft has no active underwater data centers in 2024. The tech giant shared some details about why it stopped using underwater data centers. Project Natick was an experiment, so there’s always the chance that Microsoft just wanted to learn from the project and take lessons elsewhere.
“I’m not building undersea data centers anywhere in the world,” said Noelle Walsh, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Cloud Operations + Innovation team for Data Center Dynamics.
“My team worked on it and it worked. We learned a lot about subsea operations and vibration and server impacts. So we’ll apply that knowledge to other cases.”
While Microsoft currently has no underwater data centers, the tech giant plans to use Project Natick as a research platform. Microsoft explained the future of the project in a statement to Data Center Dynamics:
“While we do not currently have data centers in water, we will continue to use Project Natick as a research platform to explore, test and validate new data center reliability and sustainability concepts, such as with liquid immersion.”
There’s a good chance Microsoft will use the learnings from its Natick project to improve data centers in other environments.
Ever increasing demand for data centers
The findings from Project Natick and other experiments will become increasingly important in the future. There is a huge demand for data centers on a global scale and it will increase over time.
Artificial intelligence is everywhere in 2024. From the smartphone to the computer, artificial intelligence functions are becoming more and more common. While some devices, such as Copilot+ computers, perform AI tasks locally, much of the data processing for AI is done in the cloud, creating an ever-increasing demand for data centers.
Of course, artificial intelligence is far from the only type of technology driving demand for data centers. Cloud computing, using smart home devices, and even searching the web require data centers. With billions of devices connected to the web, the demand for data centers seems almost endless, and that demand will continue to grow.
Data centers require energy to operate and require maintenance. Reducing the amount of energy required for data centers could significantly contribute to the management of energy networks and help spread resources to other services and facilities.