Microsoft Moves a Data Center Under the Sea

Data centers use a lot of energy, produce a lot of heat and require a lot of work to keep them cool. Microsoft announced Tuesday that they may have found the perfect solution.

The tech company has placed a data center at the bottom of the ocean, Engadget reports.

Part of Project Natick, the data center was installed entirely underwater using submarine tech, located off the coast of Scotland's Orkney Islands.

Powered by renewable energy generated onshore, it currently contains 12 racks of 864 servers that are already processing workloads.

The Microsoft team will continue monitoring the data center for the next year, making sure it stays running smoothly and doesn't impact the environment negatively. This initial data center will serve as a test case for future underwater projects.

“We know if we can put something in here and it survives, we are good for just about any place we want to go,” said Ben Cutler, manager of Project Natick. 

Taking something that requires electricity and submerging it underwater probably seems counterintuitive to most people, given that we keep our personal electronics as far away from water as possible. But the many internet cables that the world relies on to stay connected run across the sea floor, so the concept isn't entirely new.

Learn more about Microsoft's process of dunking a data center into the ocean in the video below: