Why Microsoft Is Sinking Servers: The Promise of Underwater Data Centers

Cloud computing has become a strategic focus of information technology, relying on vast numbers of land‑based servers housed in data centers to provide on‑demand resources for every internet user.

Data centers consume about 2% of global electricity, and the associated energy costs account for 30%‑50% of total IT industry expenses, prompting a search for more efficient cooling solutions.

Major tech giants have experimented with natural cooling: Facebook uses the cold air of Sweden’s Luleå, Alibaba leverages the deep lake water of Hangzhou’s Qiandao Lake, and Tencent operates in cool mountain tunnels in Guizhou.

Microsoft took a more radical approach by submerging servers underwater, aiming to exploit the ocean’s natural cooling capacity and create a greener, energy‑efficient data center.

Placing data centers near coastlines offers two key advantages: lower cooling costs due to ambient seawater temperature, and shorter data transmission distances for the majority of the world’s population living within 60 km of the sea, which can improve network speed and reduce latency.

The Natick project was launched in August 2014. In August 2015, the first prototype operated off the California coast for 101 days. A second prototype, housing 864 servers, was deployed near the Orkney Islands in June 2018 to evaluate economic, logistical, and environmental sustainability over multiple years.

If underwater data centers become viable, the benefits could extend beyond the IT industry to all internet users, offering a more sustainable and high‑performance infrastructure for the digital age.