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This seems like the sort of idea that on the surface sounds really innovative and “outside the box” but will sink like a stone when put into action
Data centers in space, data centers on ships... it's likely just an attempt to avoid laws and oversight.
And just like all the libertarian attempts to escape the horrors of being taxed and regulated by taking to the sea this too will fail catastrophically
We'll get to see REAL digital piracy on the high seas!
Or just a way for someone that owns a rocket company to get a trillion dollars. Maybe someone making ships can get a cool $100B from ~~suckers~~ investors.
In the dot com bubble it was a running joke where someone would take any business idea and and add "on the internet" onto it. "We'll sell dogfood... on the internet!" Boom! A billion dollars in VC money.
So now it's take anything and add "using AI" to it. This is even better, it's not just "using AI" it's "and put a bunch of AI chips on it."
"We build ships." Yawn. "We build ships and put a bunch of AI chips on it" Ok, here's your $100 Billion!
will sink like a stone
Microsoft already tested underwater data centres ages ago.
That makes a lot more sense to me, keeping something on the bottom of the ocean is much easier that keeping something floating on it
Yes, but I think maintenance is easier on the surface.
We have an opening for a system admin.
Requirements:
Connection will suck. Imagine this thing and its delicate hardware hit by 10m high waves all the time.
Makes infinitely more sense than in space.
Power, maintainence, and cooling all seem easier
Honestly, if it was mandated that data centers are only allowed to use renewable energy, this wouldn't be too bad.
Would waste heat go into the air or water? What affects could that have?
If the electricity comes from renewable sources, it is no (global) problem. In that case, you've just taken the sun's energy from one place (solar panel, wind turbine, etc.) and moved it elsewhere (the ocean). That's fine, that energy was going to end up heating the Earth in any case.
This is very different from greenhouse gas emissions, as those increase the total amount of energy the sun delivers to Earth, changing the global balance.
It would go into the water, and it would have basically no effect at all.
The amount of heat is many orders of magnitude too low to heat the oceans up.
As long as you don't park in very shallow waters where it would have a local effect.
Isn't this the attitude that got us climate change in the first place?
True. But the scale is still a bit different:
Climate change added 400 ZJ of heat energy to the oceans so far.
If we piped the heat of all datacenters that currently exist into the oceans, that would add 0.001 ZJ per year.
The major issue (for global warming, not local warming) isn't waste heat, it's greenhouse gasses.
Heating the oceans globally would require insane and totally unrealistic scale, but the effect on ecosystem on the immediate surroundings is a good question.
"Why bring the water to data centers if we can bring the data centers to water?"
-- some dumbass exec
Ocean water is far more abundant than fresh drinking water. If they have to build them and they need water to cool them this seems better. Although definitely potential for issues like hurricanes / storms and environmental impact for starters. They seem desperate to roll out AI as fast as possible, consequences be damned, so they better start thinking outside the box. This technology isn’t more important than freshwater for life to survive.
They're so desperate they're putting it in the worst places. I've seen it replace the normal search bar on one website, and on another you would just randomly get an AI answer instead of regular search results about half the time.
Pirates are gonna have an awesome day. I will buy all the stuff they can steal from it.
Is this the sign of the upcoming pirate age?
The real One Piece is the datacenters Samsung made along the way
Pirates of the Caribbean
because the ocean warming and inevitable collapse of the gulf stream wasnt happening fast enough, apparently.
What a beautiful coincidence.
I am building ethically sourced, renewable, solar powered torpedoes, and I will not be seeking regulatory approval.
Im somewhat surprised nobody has mentioned how corrosive salt water is. This likely would have to be some platform like an oil rig with power and internet via cables. So why not buy Sealand and build it out? Still lots oft Saltwater in the Wind and offshore but no need to have it floating around in rough waters.
The nation of Sealand cannot be bought!
Has claimed that it is planning to build
FTFY
How will the data centers be connected to the Internet? Satellite? Sounds expensive.. Or those cruise ships selling their internet data packages are all lying about how expensive is to have satellite internet..
It's slightly less stupid than data centers in space I suppose. But I still find it pretty weird.
You will have to be tethered to land anyway. Properly high bandwidth networking as you would usually see to connect a data center (on the order of a dozen terabits per second) only exists through fiber optic cables. I'm sure of this point, because optical networking is my day-job, though we only run 400 Gbit/s links on the fastest edges since we're a small national network.
As for power, well there are 80 MW ship engines (e.g. Wärtsilä-Sulzer RT-flex96C, which has even been built in Korea under license before), so it's not impossible I suppose. But if you are tethered, then the country you're tethered to will probably forbid you from burning bunker fuel for 80 MW on its coast. At which point you'd be reduced to running clean diesel or something. That I expect would make the power more costly than just tethering to an electric grid
So now we have a big barge rather than a ship. What do you really save then? I guess the price of the land? And you gain access to copious amounts of saltwater, so you can do closed loop cooling with freshwater, and do the secondary heat exchange to the ocean. But you could do that by building on the coast too. Okay I guess you might gain tsunami security over a coastal building.
If this is a real proposal why don't they tell us the material advantages they expect, rather than making us guess?
Ironic, considering AI is built on piracy
What if it sinks
Then they certainly won't overheat
Warming local water systems will have zero effect on the local environment and wildlife
Terrible article. Does not answer the "why" question. What is the advantage? All it says is that "Seasides can ease the pains of giant mainland AI date centers". Is it just skirting around taxes and rules, like a floating casino? The ship would have a shoreside power connection or power itself as well apparently. Would the ships generators be subject to the same emission requirements as shoreside plants?
Seems like just a floating barge that will not really be out at sea, just sitting in protected bays or up waterways. Cooling water, would have to use a closed circuit freshwater system with heat exchangers cooling it with saltwater. That would consume less water than the evaporation cooling method, but still is not listed a possible reason.
Ships are expensive. What is the reason for floating a data center? Cheaper than land near big cities? Less regulations? Less taxes? Cooling water? Cheaper electricity?
Poseidon plz 🥺
Good torpedo targets
Makes sense. Leaves our potable water alone and keeps the fuckers out of sight. They could even put in wind turbines to power the fucking things.
The warming of the water is likely an issue for marine life and ecosystems
Tweaker version of Red October where they steal all the copper: “Itsh a game of chesh against our old adversary…”
JK but the oceans aren't really warming up fast enough. Maybe a buttload of gpus may help?
Wait, isn’t this what happened in Snowcrash?
What regulatory approval do you need if it's in international waters
Ships have to be registered in a country and follow the laws of that country when they're in international water.
If you don't register your ship you're effectively a pirate and any navy can just blast your ship out of the water.