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Why Microsoft Has Underwater Data Centers

Eight million data centres around the world are processing our entire online lives thousands of times a second, but Microsoft may have just rewritten this growing industry, and it may be for the better.

With our reliance on cloud based services expected to be at an all time high in 2021 due to a huge shift online pushed forward by the ongoing pandemic, the need for the most energy and time efficient data centres is crucial moving forward. Microsoft has just reached the end of a two year stage two experiment, sinking our data to the ocean floor, and here’s why this is big news.

On 9 July 2020, the tech giant reeled up what it calls its ‘Northern Isles,’ a 12.2 metre long steel cylinder, from the seabed. The giant tube remained 117 feet below the surface for 2 whole years, gathering data which would later be analysed by engineers.

The company chose to locate this long term experiment 10 miles off the coast of Scotland in the Orkney Islands archipelago. Here, 100% of the energy comes from environmentally green sources such as wind and solar.

Why Microsoft Has Underwater Data Centers

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Alice AUSTIN

Alice AUSTIN is studying Cisco Systems Engineering. He has passion with both hardware and software and writes articles and reviews for many IT websites.

48 thoughts on “Why Microsoft Has Underwater Data Centers

  • Sooo we are putting heaters in the ocean now!!! We are so smart. Hope this really takes off.

  • I can see one problem with an Underwater Data Center. The problem is what do you do when something inside the data center fails and needs to be repaired. If a serious problem occurs with the data center, the data center will need to be retrieved from the ocean in order to do repairs on it. With land based data centers technicians can always access the components of the data center.

  • Energy cannot be destroyed only transferred not cooling warming ocean

  • Funny. Talking about enviroment etc but all heat goes to the water and does not disapear.

  • Tech vidions sounds like they are ai that have no idea what their writting about

  • It's may result in disrupting the sea ecosystems in long run . Research projects may not disrupt but commercial big scale projects sure to give a negative impact.

  • These also provide protection from EMP and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) i.e. solar storms from sun. Great idea – dude it's 8 million servers not 8 million data centers but great movie thank you.

  • Probably because when they go full Orwell they know people are going to justifiably start taking them out. Personally, I look forward to it.

  • I think its a bad idea because land data centers when it detects a fire or something the data gets backed up fully but by the time a underwater data center detects some thing wrong it might be too late for the servers. Tech is not all prefect!

  • So much ado to allow population to watch porn. haha.

  • Let drop heat sourcees into the cold water currents under the ocean. What can possible go wrong? It's not like a change in ocean currents would do anything.
    Stupid silicone rainmans good at virtual money mining so they think they know everything else. Have they thought to consult experts in oceans??

  • You need a submarine ship to get inside.

  • It's 100% renewable energy while it's at a proof of concept stage. Once the servers go production there's no way they won't add emergency diesel generators.

  • Then there's the matter of Security. You would need a Navy to Secure these SubDCs. And the matter of routine Drive Swaps

  • It's the ocean,I don't see how such a small container would even spark a conversation about climate disruption.

  • Good ideas archive vital data base in basemen/ or under ocean high enough depth but must use cd or DVD because ocean had ion can erase magnetic storage

  • This is cool. I'm throwing my servers in the pool tomorrow.

  • They acting like we don't use under sea cables now, bcuz there is no satellites in fake space.
    I bet the REAL Nikolai Tesla would had it up and running by now.

  • This could also be accomplished in caves. The one thing that makes me skeptical is, if the value of the data center falls below the value of recovery, they will more than likely be shut off and abandoned. Something that dovetails though with this idea is smaller nuclear plants. One thing worth pointing out is, in the US we have some major problems now with weather patterns affecting water and power supply in the Western US. Hydro power was thought to be practically free and endless.

  • Why not build a data center inside of a small hydroelectric dam. Split the river one part to go to the turbine, one stream bypasses for fish and wildlife and one part to go to cooling that runs through cyclone filtration followed by mesh filters which does a single pass of the data center back into the river. The reduced corrosion is interesting but I don't think it alleviates the cost of maintenance anyways.

  • It is like writing: How old am I? I get to say or write: Four (4 1/2) and a half. If I was 1 and 1/2, mom would say: 18 months and a day.

  • How secure is this against Russian or Chinese Subs Missiles?

  • When placed, provides a habitat for sea creatures. When removed, destroys it….

  • This video compares conventional data centers to data centers In a container under the sea.
    But how about comparing the container under sea to container above ground.
    Maybe the big change come from the container part and not the under the sea part.

  • That's where you see that original ideas are not necessarily good ideas. But "wouhou" it sounds high tech. Microsoft has always been the best worst of all ideas in IT. It is just keeping its signature.

  • They don’t pay municipal taxes with underwater Data Center , Microsoft hates to pay taxes.

  • wouldnt it be easier to build a structure near the ocean and circulate water (much like a cooling power station).

  • Haha lame, ‘ aquatic life loves the data centers, the nooks and crannies“ they just finished building their little condos and apartments and then Microsoft, heartlessly, rips it off the seafloor every five years and Pressure washers all those little lovers into oblivion

  • It contains all our phone numbers because telemarketers need to eat too.

  • Ok lets think this through, and coming from someone in Data Center Engineering…. They want to put these Data Centers in the oceans, to help regulate their temperature, because they build incredible amounts of heat. This is why they want to do this…. Now lets think about what happens when our Ocean waters warm up…. They will say this is no way near enough to worry about right?… That's the same thing they said about the fossil fuel industries….. Lets warm our oceans but we're cooling our computers, yeah that's smart. AI needs to come on and take over because these Humans that hold positions of power are as dumb as a bag of bricks.

  • Sea creature mass die off….hmmm
    Sea life beaching themselves…..hmmmm
    MOTHER NATURE IS TALKING, YOU SHOULD LISTEN OR DIE….

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