Strategic Intelligence: Deep Dive into Data Centers’ Next Frontier: Oceans and Space
Description
Strategic Intelligence: Deep Dive into Data Centers’ Next Frontier: Oceans and Space
Summary
The growing popularity of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud services, and digital applications is driving unprecedented demand for computing power, placing huge pressure on traditional land-based data centers. These facilities face challenges, including high energy consumption and substantial water use, especially in drought-prone regions. To address these challenges and meet the needs of increasingly complex AI workloads, alternative environments must be explored. Oceans and space offer abundant cooling, energy, and deployment flexibility, positioning them as the next frontier for data center infrastructure.
Key Highlights
Summary
The growing popularity of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud services, and digital applications is driving unprecedented demand for computing power, placing huge pressure on traditional land-based data centers. These facilities face challenges, including high energy consumption and substantial water use, especially in drought-prone regions. To address these challenges and meet the needs of increasingly complex AI workloads, alternative environments must be explored. Oceans and space offer abundant cooling, energy, and deployment flexibility, positioning them as the next frontier for data center infrastructure.
Key Highlights
- Floating and underwater data centers provide scalable, efficient solutions by using seawater for cooling and by accessing renewable energy near coastlines. These modular facilities reduce reliance on land and potable water, improve latency for coastal populations, and mitigate some of the climate risks posed by terrestrial data centers. Pilot projects across North America, Europe, and Asia have demonstrated the viability of ocean-based deployments. These facilities can work at megawatt scales, with high rack density, and the potential for long-term use. The use of ocean-based is currently limited, but as technology improves and the benefits of these facilities become more widely recognized, their presence will expand over the next decade.
- Space-based data centers push these innovations further, using the extreme cold of space and unlimited solar energy to power high-performance computing. Lower launch costs and advancements in reusable rockets, in-orbit networking, and the selection of optimal orbits make space data centers increasingly feasible. They provide low-latency processing and storage capabilities directly to satellites and spacecraft, while complementing terrestrial infrastructures. While fully operational orbital or lunar data centers remain largely experimental, numerous opportunities for partnerships, funding, and research in space-based computing exist, further accelerating the development of data centers in space.
- This report examines issues with traditional data centers and analyzes two alternatives: floating or underwater data centers and space-based data centers.
- Data centers provide stability and computing power, allowing businesses to run important applications, store valuable data, and deliver online services. The AI boom has created new demand for data center infrastructure. More facilities, wider geographic distribution, and substantial capacity increases are needed to support AI workloads. The need for efficient, scalable, and sustainable data center solutions is pressing.
Table of Contents
42 Pages
- Executive Summary
- Data Centers in the Ocean
- Data Centers in Space
- Glossary
- Further Reading
- Report Authors
- Thematic Research Methodology
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