Microsoft researchers explored the ocean depths to find out whether a testing data center can exist under the sea. For instance, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) turned a paper mill in Hamina, Finland into a data center which uses the sea water from the Bay of Finland in its cooling system.
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The company is looking at two potential designs: A data centre located on the sea floor, or placing the centres in pods that are suspended under the surface that then use turbines to capture energy from the currents. In 2014, Microsoft started Project Natick for testing data centers underwater.
This breakthrough could also bring many environmental benefits: first of all, remind that data centers need a lot of energy to power your Internet needs. Dubbed “Leona Philpot” after a character from the popular Halo videogame, the capsule – which was filled with pressurized nitrogen – featured a single rack of servers and heat exchangers clamped to the hull in order to regulate the temperature inside.
These days, companies are seeking some of the strangest sites for data centers.
According to the New York Times, Microsoft is now ready to push the research of Project Natic forward by building larger capsules that could successfully house Microsoft cloud services such as Azure and Office 365.
Microsoft has tested an underwater data centre that it says could reduce cloud latency by being placed close to heavily populated areas near coastlines.
“Project Natick reflects Microsoft’s ongoing quest for cloud datacenter solutions that offer rapid provisioning, lower costs, high responsiveness, and are more environmentally sustainable”, the company said. “When I first heard about this I thought, ‘Water, electricity, why would you do that?’ But as you think more about it, it actually makes a lot of sense”, says Ben Cutler, Project Engineer, Project Natick. Microsoft also considers 5 years for each “deployment cycle”, which mirrors the lifespan of the computers in it. After each cycle, the data center would be resurfaced, re-equipped with new computers, and redeployed. The sensors also measured the capsule’s impact on its environment – although thankfully, the sounds of the server’s fans were drowned out by the noise of nearby shrimp, while the heat it generated only affected the water a few inches around the vessel.
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Microsoft explained on its website that Project Natick – and any future subsea data centers – will be totally recycled and would emit have zero emissions. The company is slated to initiate a new trial next year, targeting Northern Europe or the region near Florida as its test ground.
