Microsoft Gears Up For Underwater Data Centers
As our lives become increasingly digitized in the 21st century, tech companies are facing the constant need for keeping heat off their data centers. Silicon Valley giants like Facebook and Google decided to house their servers in cold countries that would save them dollars off their huge aircon bill. Microsoft, however, goes for a much bolder idea of putting their data centers under water.
According to a report by The Verge, Microsoft launched Project Natick- a game-changing effort of making server maintenance cost-effective and environmentally sustainable by constructing undersea data centers.
The novel idea came about three years ago when an employee with navy submarine background wrote a concept paper which triggered interests within the company's R & D division. The subsequent development started in 2014 which yielded to the first prototype design of an underwater server in a steel capsule measuring 8 ft.
"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, "remarked Ben Cutler, one of the co-designers of the project as quoted saying by The New York Times.
Why would Microsoft build submarine data centers?
In an article written for Gizmodo, author Bryan Lufkin enumerated practical reasons for Microsoft's ambitious project:
- Underwater cloud data centers improve service performance due to 'customer proximity' since many large highly urbanized cities lie close to sea coasts.
- Water keeps overheating at bay at all times.
- Data centers can be paired with energy infrastructures like tidal wave generators or wind turbines to supply an endless demand for energy to its submarine servers.
While the idea seems so incredibly radical at present, Microsoft hopes that its endeavor will be a trailblazer for the years to come.
