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Data Centers: Project Natick — An Idea That’s Under Water
What if you put a data center under water? Sounds crazy? That’s what Microsoft is trying to do.
Microsoft has started up a project that they’ve nicknamed Project Natick where they will investigate the operational efficiencies of data centers located under oceans, seas, or rivers. The idea is that some amount of energy could be extracted from the waves of the water to power the facility and that the waters would dissipate any heat given off from the center.
Microsoft explains on the project website that “Project Natick is focused on a cloud future that can help better serve customers in areas which are near large bodies of water. Half of the world’s population lives within 200 km of the ocean, so placing data centers offshore increases the proximity of the data center to the population, dramatically reducing latency and providing better responsiveness. The vision of operating containerized data centers offshore near major population centers anticipates a highly interactive future requiring data resources located close to users. Deepwater deployment offers ready access to cooling, renewable power sources, and a controlled environment.”
Ben Cutler, the project manager for the Microsoft’s underwater data center said that “when I first heard about this I thought, ‘Water…electricity, why would you do that?’ But as you think more about it, it actually makes a lot of sense.”
Tom Dowdall, a climate campaigner at Greenpeace, said that “experimental underwater data centres could be more sustainable if connected to offshore wind power, but Microsoft must focus more on investing in new renewable energy now. Microsoft is far behind Apple, Google and Facebook in sourcing renewable energy for existing data centers.”
