China’s Highlander has launched an underwater data center in Hainanthe first similar project to be deployed on a commercial scale. The energy needs of Ai data centers largely come from the cooling needs of the servers, and China has answered this demand by submerging their Ai data centers. This is something that Microsoft, among others, has successfully experimented with, but has not yet been used commercially. The benefits of submerged data centers include a 90% reduction in cooling costs because the ocean’s currents do what fresh water would otherwise do; this translates into 40% more computing power than a comparable land-based system. Combined with renewable energy, costs drop further as this project is largely powered by an adjacent offshore wind farm; says the company that it is 95% powered by renewable energy.
A drone photo taken on February 18, 2025 shows Hainan’s commercial underwater intelligent computer cluster being lowered into the sea near Lingshui Li Autonomous County in South China’s Hainan Province. The project has now been completed and commercially operational.
Xinhua
Ai and Water
Microsoft and others have built underwater data centers, but no projects of this caliber are currently active 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, putting pressure on already flooded regions. The current trajectory is aimed at continued neglect of water, as the recent series 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 drinking water for local residents and competing industries such as agriculture.
Current levels of water stress across America. The scale goes from ‘none’ to ‘exceptional drought’. Most of the country experiences some degree of water scarcity.
US Drought Monitor
Even more encouraging from Sam Altman this month is the news that Samsung and OpenAI to develop floating data centers a signal of openness and a sign that OpenAI recognizes the strengths of diversification. The specific reasons mentioned in Samsung’s statement on this partnership highlight some of the strategic benefits of floating data centers: “Floating data centers are considered to have advantages over data centers as they can address land scarcity, reduce cooling costs and reduce CO2 emissions.”
What is Amazon’s response to this? They plan to build AI data centers in space. They save water for cooling because it is cold in space, and with large solar panels they have an unlimited energy source. The EU supports the idea and other companies are working on it; has one company have already tested a launch and claimed success; with some advances in rockets and solar panels, some argue this could be feasible by 2037. If this feat is achieved and normalized, it will reduce Ai’s water needs to zero while allowing infinite capacity expansion while eliminating land competition on Earth. Ambitious plan; I would encourage that we continue with sea-based solutions instead, but space-based solutions are at least more viable in the long term than land-based solutions where both water and land will run out.
McKinsey’s forecast for data center growth shows steady growth. Land and water are finite.
McKinsey and company
Water problems in Britain
Should we worry about the availability of water and data centers? Do we have a general need to save water? If we choose Britain, an economically developed nation, as our example: yes. The water consumption of Scottish data centres has quadrupled since 2021. The UK is known for its water infrastructure problems and droughts, and their largest water company, Thames Water, is facing headlines like this one from earlier this month: “Why is Thames Water in such trouble?”
In short, Thatcher.
Problems are not limited to this one utility, such as Mark Thurston, the CEO of Anglian Water, was intercepted this week by activists who tried to put him under citizen’s arrest for ‘public nuisance’.
As Novara Media explains, this direct action comes just days after Anglian Water approved an increase in the cap on water bills to fund infrastructure while the company makes profits. This comes in the same year that Britain approved up to two years in prison for water company bosses investigating sewage leaks. How normalized must the greed and obstruction by British water administrators have been? Bad enough to require legislation on the matter and £158 million in fines paid by water companies for failings related to water and sewer leaks, as reported by the Financial Times.
What can be done to fix the bursting pipes and leaking sewage and reduce annual water bills, which for some have increased 30% since April? Certainly not to use more than 13 million liters of water per year to cool Ai data centers in Scotland. The European Union plans to triple the capacity of its data centers over the next five to seven years as it tries to stay relevant in the global AI race and given that 34% of the European population is alive in areas of seasonal water scarcity we can understand why the submerged and floating designs should be explored instead.
Britain is not doing well in water security and efficiency overall; and this also applies to Spain and Greece, where large-scale data centers are being built. Building data centers without answering the water safety question is government negligence.
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