Microsoft closes its underwater data center after 11 years of operation — experiment recognized as useful

Microsoft has ended its Project Natick underwater data center experiment, which started in 2013, without announcing it. The company confirmed the news, and Microsoft Cloud Operations head Noelle Walsh said: «My team worked on this and it worked. We’ve learned a lot about working below sea level, vibration, and the impact on servers. So, we will apply this knowledge to other cases».

Data centers are expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. Last year alone, NVIDIA sold more than 3.76 million data center processors. These cards are expected to consume 14.3 TWh of electricity per year and require powerful cooling. Cooling systems account for about 40% of data center consumption. If Microsoft can find a way to reduce or even eliminate these costs, it can reduce the data center’s electricity needs.

Microsoft lost only 6 of the 855 submersible servers it installed off the coast of Scotland in 2018, compared to 8 servers out of a total of 135 in the company’s parallel experiment on land. In other words, that’s a 0.7% loss rate at sea versus 5.9% for conventional deployments.

The company said that the main reason for this durability is the stability of seawater temperatures and the inert nitrogen used to protect the servers. When asked if the use of robots in data centers will be part of the training, Walsh said: «We’re looking at robotics more from the perspective that some of these new servers are going to be very heavy. How can we automate that rather than having people carry something? We are learning from other areas of robotics, but we also realize that we need people. I don’t want people to worry about their jobs».

While Microsoft has completed research into an underwater data center, China launched a submerged server project in 2023. The company does not say whether other server submergence projects are planned. Earlier it was reported that Microsoft is working with OpenAI to create a $100 billion supercomputer data center for artificial intelligence. The company wants to create modular nuclear reactors to power such projects.

Source: Tom`s Hardware