What you need to know
- Microsoft no longer has any active underwater data centers.
- The company experimented with underwater data centers as part of its Project Natick.
- Underwater data centers experienced one-eighth the failure rate compared to land-based data centers.
- Microsoft explained that in other cases it will use what it learned from the project.
With the heat dome raising temperatures in many parts of the world, a jump into an icy sea may sound refreshing. But if you do jump into cold water, you won’t have the company of Microsoft’s underwater data centers. The tech giant began testing underwater data centers in the North Sea in 2018, but no longer has any active underwater data centers.
The undersea data centers were part of Microsoft’s Project Natick, which aimed to test the feasibility of placing data centers underwater. The experiment involved placing giant tubes 35 meters below the surface of the Scottish sea. The data center’s unique 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 differ greatly between humans and machines. Keeping the data centers separated from people also prevented anyone from bumping into components.
Project Natick saw interesting results, including underwater data centers with one-eighth the failure rate of data centers with the same components on land.
Although the results seemed promising, Microsoft will have no active underwater data centers in 2024. The tech giant shared few details about why it has stopped using underwater data centers. Project Natick was an experiment, so there’s always a chance that Microsoft simply wanted to learn from the project and take lessons elsewhere.
“I’m not building subsea data centers anywhere in the world,” said Noelle Walsh, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft’s Cloud Operations + Innovation team at Data Center Dynamics.
“My team worked on it, and it worked. We learned a lot about operations below sea level, vibration, and server impact, so we’ll apply those lessons to other cases.”
Although Microsoft does not currently have any 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 currently do not have any data centers in the water, we will continue to use Project Natick as a research platform to explore, test and validate new concepts around data center reliability and sustainability, for example with liquid immersion.”
There is a good chance that Microsoft will use the findings from its Project Natick to improve data centers in other environments.
An ever-growing demand for data centers
Insights from Project Natick and other experiments will become increasingly important in the future. There is a huge demand for data centers worldwide, and it will only increase over time.
Artificial intelligence will be everywhere in 2024. From your smartphone to your computer, AI features are becoming increasingly common. While some devices, such as Copilot+ PCs, perform AI tasks locally, much of the data processing for AI happens in the cloud, creating increasing demand for data centers.
Of course, AI is far from the only type of technology driving demand for data centers. Cloud computing, using a smart home device, and even searching the Internet require data centers. With billions of devices connected to the internet, the demand for data centers feels almost endless, and that demand will continue to grow.
Data centers require energy to function and require maintenance. Reducing the amount of energy data centers require could go a long way in managing energy networks and helping distribute resources to other services and devices.