China’s Highlander has launched an underwater data center in Hainanthe first such project to be developed on a commercial scale. The energy requirements of Ai data centers come largely from the cooling requirements of the servers, and China has answered this question by placing its Ai data centers underwater. This is something that has been successfully experimented with by Microsoft among others, but has not been commercially deployed until now. The benefits of submerged data centers include a 90% reduction in cooling costs, as ocean currents do what fresh water would otherwise do. this translates to 40% more calculations than a comparable terrestrial system. When combined with renewable energy, costs are further reduced as this project is largely powered by an adjacent offshore wind farm. says the company that it is powered by 95% renewable energy sources.
A drone photo taken on February 18, 2025 shows the commercial submarine Hainan Intelligent Computing Complex descending into the sea near Lingshui Li Autonomous County in south China’s Hainan Province. The project is now complete and commercially operational.
Xinhua
Oh and Water
Microsoft and others have built underwater data centers, but no projects of this caliber are currently operating in the West. Anything that saves water is welcome, as today’s land-based data centers are often built in arid areas and require massive water withdrawals that stress already water-stressed areas. The current path is towards continued water breaching, as the recent batch of data centers announced by OpenAI will be built in Texas, New Mexico and somewhere in the Midwest. These states do not have an abundance of water, and any withdrawals will be at the expense of local residents’ drinking water and competing industries such as agriculture.
Current levels of water stress across America. The scale goes from “none” to “extreme drought”. Most of the country has some level of water scarcity.
US Drought Monitor
More encouraging than Sam Altman this month is the news that Samsung and OpenAI to develop floating data centers, a sign of transparency and a sign that OpenAI recognizes the strengths of differentiation. The specific reasons stated in Samsung’s statement about this partnership highlight some strategic advantages of floating data centers, “Floating data centers are considered to have advantages over data centers because they can address land scarcity, reduce cooling costs, and reduce carbon emissions.”
What is Amazon’s response to this? They intend to build AI data centers in space. They will save water for cooling because it is cold in space and with large solar arrays they will have an unlimited source of energy. The EU supports the idea and other companies are working on it. a company has already tested a launch and claim success. With some advances in rocketry and solar arrays, some claim this could be viable until 2037. Whenever this feat is achieved and normalized, it will zero out Ai’s water requirements while allowing for infinite capacity expansion while removing land competition from land. Ambitious plan. I would encourage going sea-based, but at least space is more sustainable in the long term than land-based solutions that will run out of both water and land.
McKinsey’s data center growth forecast shows steady expansion. Land and water are finite.
McKinsey and Company
Water difficulties in Britain
Should we worry about water availability and data centers? Do we have a general need to save water? Taking Britain, an economically developed nation as our example: yes. Water use in Scottish data centres it has quadrupled since 2021. The UK has problems with water infrastructure and drought, and the biggest water company, Thames Water, has been dealing with headlines like this one since earlier this month: “Why is Thames water in such big trouble?”
In short, Thatcher.
The problems are not limited to this single utility Mark Thurston, the chief executive of Anglian Water, was blocked by campaigners this week trying to arrest him for “public nuisance”.
As Navaro Media explains, this immediate action comes just days after Anglian Water was approved to raise the cap on water bills to fund infrastructure while the company posts a profit. This comes in the same year that the UK approves up to two years in jail for water company bosses who block investigations sewage leaks. How normalized should greed and obstruction by British water officials be? Bad enough to require legislation on the matter and £158 million in fines paid by water companies for damage related to water and sewage leaks, as reported by the Financial Times.
What can be done to fix the burst pipes and leaking sewage and reduce the annual water bill which is now up 30% for some since April? You certainly shouldn’t be using more than 13 million liters of water per year to cool your Ai data centers in Scotland. The European Union plans to triple its data center capacity over the next five to seven years as it tries to stay relevant in the global AI race, and given that 34% of Europe’s population lives In areas with seasonal water scarcity, we can see why submerged and floating designs should be explored.
The UK is not doing well on water security or efficiency in general. Neither is Spain or Greece, where extensive data center construction is underway. Building data centers without answering the water security question is government negligence.
