AI Endgame: Undersea Datacenters Boost the Industrialization of Oceans

Newsletter #12

Dec 01, 2024

https://debbiecoffey.substack.com/p/ai-endgame-undersea-datacenters-boost

Dec. 1, 2024

By Debbie Coffey, AI Endgame

I spent ten years researching the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) plans for public lands in the West. I learned that our public lands are being industrialized. The BLM claims to plan for “a thriving natural ecological balance,” but commercial “uses” like mining and oil and gas extraction, the “uses” that make money for both U.S. government coffers and for the special interests that lobby Congress, take precedence over healthy lands or wildlife.

Special interests are prioritized over the American people. The bottom line of the government, and of private corporations, is more important than nature, ecology, or you.

In the past few decades, we’ve also witnessed the industrialization of Earth’s oceans.

Testing the waters

Over the past decade, we’ve seen the proliferation of datacenters housing many servers that run constantly. Cooling these servers requires a lot of water and energy. Since AI will require many more datacenters in the future, companies are exploring the feasibility of locations in oceans, because oceans have a cooler environment.

Companies claim they’re developing undersea datacenters because these would be more “energy efficient” and use less water than datacenters on land. [1]

I’m skeptical and think they’re developing undersea datacenters because it’s cheaper.

If you’re just hearing about undersea datacenters, your first thought might be that mixing water and electricity doesn’t sound like a good idea.

Undersea datacenters consist of waterproof pods that contain servers and related IT equipment. Companies assert these undersea pods are designed to withstand both pressure from ocean depth and corrosion from seawater. [2]

Microsoft tested the first undersea datacenter module in 2015. [3] Eight years later, China is taking a big leap.

China dives in on the first commercial undersea datacenter

In December 2023, China sank more than 100 cylindrical modules (pods) containing servers 115 feet onto the bottom of the sea off Hainan Island to create the first commercial undersea datacenter. [4]

Prior to this, there were only a few pilot test programs.

Microsoft’s Project Natick

In August 2015, Microsoft announced Phase 1 of “Project Natick” a prototype datacenter pod containing servers that was tested off the coast of San Luis Obispo, California for 105 days. (In 2016, the California Coastal Commission issued a notice to Microsoft because they didn’t obtain a permit to sink the pod into the ocean and violated the law.) [5]

(Another example of unchecked Big Tech doing whatever they want to do.)

In June 2018, Phase 2 of Project Natick, an undersea datacenter consisting of 12 racks containing 864 servers was placed on the seafloor off the Orkney Islands in Scotland for two years. Microsoft was excited because it took only ninety days to build and sink these pods and the pods. The pods were designed to run five years without maintenance.

Microsoft had planned a Phase 3 of Project Natick, but abruptly pulled the plug on it by stating Project Natick “worked,” but they decided not to move forward with undersea datacenters. [6]

There are other undersea datacenter projects. In August 2024, NetworkOcean announced plans to sink a pod containing servers into the San Francisco Bay. In September, Wired magazine discovered NetworkOcean hadn’t acquired the permits for this test that are required by law.

Permitting can take months, and even years, and cost millions of dollars. Strict regulation is needed since companies often don’t care about doing the right thing.

The founders of NetworkOcean argue that they don’t need permits because their test would be done in a privately owned and operated portion of the bay that is not subject to regulations. Regulators do not agree with NetworkOcean’s opinion.

Subsea Cloud, based in Los Angeles, operates 13,500 underwater servers in unspecified locations in Southeast Asia. It uses remotely operated robots for maintenance. CEO Maxie Reynolds states Subsea cloud is also considering “private sites.” [7]

Can any part of the ocean be “privately owned?”

While there may be private property ownership of some beaches to the low tide line, under international law, no part of the ocean can be private property. Earth’s oceans are considered to be a “global commons.”

Per the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, countries have the right to “exclusive economic zones” (EEZs) up to 200 nautical miles from their coastline, and can exploit the natural resources in the EEZ. [8]

We should all keep an eye out in the news for any companies building undersea datacenters that claim they’re doing tests or building on “privately owned” sites in the ocean, since it’s a big red flag these companies are circumventing regulations that are in place to protect the oceans.

What could go wrong?

As we observe changes in the worldwide weather, we need to consider future cataclysmic weather events. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a network of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that keep the Earth’s climate stable is on the brink of collapse. Resulting catastrophic changes could possibly affect the safety of undersea datacenters. [9]

What are we going to do if the Trump Administration downsizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and eliminates many departments within NOAA’s National Weather Service? Project 2025 calls for restricting the National Weather Service’s research, minimizing climate information, and commercializing our public National Weather Service forecasts.

Sabotage is also another factor to consider. Undersea pipelines and equipment have already been sabotaged, so it’s likely undersea datacenters would also be targets.

University of Florida researchers discovered that soundwaves from twenty feet away could affect critical operations of undersea datacenters. Although scientists developed an algorithm to identify sound attacks and to protect the datacenter, other types of unanticipated sabotage methods could be used in the future.

Are undersea datacenter companies downplaying the environmental risks? So far, they have only collected data on single, pilot programs, which they did themselves. (Think of the fox guarding the henhouse.)

There aren’t comprehensive studies of how thousands of datacenters could affect ocean ecosystems.

Thousands of additional datacenters in the future, containing many more thousands of pods, could have unknown effects on sea life and ecosystems.

Oceans are open for business

Oceans are being drained by greed.

If you sit on the beach in southern California, you’ll likely see oil rigs rising from the ocean. The natural vista that stood unchanged for billions of years has been permanently scarred. We’ve also seen the devastating impact of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana, which spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. [10]

In order to facilitate internet data, about 800,000 miles of fiber optic cables cross the Earth’s oceans (per TeleGeography, an industry tracking organization). Most of these cables lie on the ocean floor and are only buried closer to shore. Big corporations own these cables. [11]

Militaries use remotely operated underwater drones and submarines for national security and warfare. [12]

And this year, “dark oxygen” was discovered in the deep ocean abyss. “Dark oxygen” is oxygen that is found at depths where sunlight doesn’t penetrate, and is produced by naturally occurring metallic “nodules” that contain metals like lithium, cobalt, and copper, metals essential to the manufacturing of batteries. Mining companies are now developing the technology to remove these nodules from the ocean. [13]

Plans are underway to mine the dark oxygen nodules at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, an area between Hawaii and Mexico. [14]

Unfortunately, the International Seabed Authority regulates mining in this region and has issued exploration contracts. [15]

The “blue economy” (money being made from ocean resources) is big business. [16]

Meanwhile, whales are on the brink of extinction. [17]

The deployment of thousands of undersea datacenters, along with the increased equipment, activities, and long- term use of large areas of vast seabed areas, will further accelerate the industrialization of Earth’s oceans.

Please support ocean conservation organizations.

NEXT WEEK: AI and mental health

Find links to all past AI Endgame newsletters HERE.