- Samsung is targeting 2028 to commercialize its floating data centers
- Land shortages and application processes would be avoided
- Saltwater challenges need to be ironed out
With terrestrial data centers under increased scrutiny over water and energy consumption, and facing intensifying local opposition, cloud providers are being forced to think more creatively, and Samsung is now dreaming up a floating data center.
Its Samsung Heavy Industries group subdivision now has plans to commercialize floating data centers by as soon as Q2 2028, and even plans to secure orders before installations.
By floating compute on the water, Samsung would be able to overcome land shortages but also reduce cooling requirements by keeping them at a more stable temperature.
Samsung to float data centers on the water by 2028
The company's plans include developing a dedicated barge to house servers, electrical infrastructure and on-board power equipment, however initial deployments would primarily use shore-based electricity, tapping into existing grid infrastructure but benefiting from the cooling properties of water.
Earlier concepts also proposed the idea of using LNG-fuelled solid oxide fuel cells, while renewable sources like solar and wind could also be considered.
Samsung also argues that floating facilities could be delivered more quickly than traditional terrestrial facilities because they can avoid lengthy permitting processes and use existing shipbuilding manufacturing processes and tooling.
However, the concept also has some complexities that need to be addressed, like water ingress and humidity, the corrosive nature of saltwater, and stability in tides and currents.
"Floating data centers represent a major new opportunity for the shipbuilding and offshore industries," Samsung Heavy Industries CEO Sung-an Choi concluded.
Samsung is not the first technology heavyweight to moot the potential of floating data centers, especially as power demands rise due to AI pressures.
Recent reports detailed how startup Panthalassa, backed by Peter Thiel, is developing floating data centers using wave energy and ocean water cooling systems.
And in May 226, a floating data center project in Japan gained significant backing from Hitachi, which signed a memorandum with shipping firm Mitsui OSK Lines to develop and operate the facility.
Chinese authorities and private engineering company HiCloud Technology also recently announced the launch of a jointly-developed $226 million installation of an underwater data center where sealed server modules operate beneath the ocean using seawater for passive cooling.
This 24-megawatt installation processes artificial intelligence workloads, 5G services, and large-scale data annotation operations requiring substantial computing capacity.
Microsoft also previously tested submerged data center capsules through its Project Natick initiative, conducted near Scotland and California before discontinuing commercial development efforts.
All of this while talks of data centers being sent up into space are playing out, of course, and while it's unclear which may solve the problem long-term, floating data centers certainly look to be more realistic on a shorter timeline.
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