(MENAFN) Beneath the waves off Hainan’s coast, a bold experiment in infrastructure has quietly come to life – and it may rewrite how we think about data, energy, and the sea.

China’s first commercial underwater data center is now operational near Lingshui County in Hainan Province, and it marks a big step in the “blue economy” push that seeks to merge marine resources with high-tech development.

This article explores how it plans to achieve this.

The importance of data centers

Data centers are the invisible engines of our digital lives. Every online action – from streaming a movie to playing on an online casino, like you might find at this source –  runs through these high-powered hubs that store, process, and deliver data around the world.

As more businesses rely on AI, cloud computing, and real-time analytics, the demand for faster, greener, and more secure data centers has skyrocketed.

They’ve become as essential to modern infrastructure as power plants or highways, quietly keeping global communication, finance, and entertainment running. That’s why innovations like Hainan’s underwater data center are redefining what the next generation of digital infrastructure can look like.

The logic behind underwater centers

At the heart of this feat is a deceptively simple idea – let the ocean do the heavy lifting.

The newly submerged data cabin, which weighs in at about 1,300 metric tonnes, is roughly the equivalent of 1,000 passenger vehicles and it's about 35 meters (114.8 feet) below the surface. This allows it to be cooled naturally by surrounding seawater.

Inside this hermetically sealed module are 24 server racks, capable of hosting 400 to 500 servers, which power everything from restaurant recommendation systems to AI-driven travel hacks.

The underwater model dramatically cuts cooling-related energy consumption compared with traditional land-based data center. One report finds it gives up to 50 % energy savings, and a power-use efficiency (PUE) as low as 1.1, compared to typical thresholds, which typically number at near 1.4.

Just the opening move

This underwater data cabin is just the opening move in a broader plan.

Under Hainan’s current five-year blueprint, the companies behind it could deploy 100 such modules which would form the greater vision: an integrated industrial estate powered by innovative marine computing – firmly part of the island’s bid to anchor the blue economy in its new free-trade zone.

Hainan is one of four Chinese hubs (alongside Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen) where policy now allows full foreign ownership of data centers and value-added telecom services. The policy change comes following the immense global tech appetite for AI and cloud computing, which comes with an openness to foreign investment.

The move signals a recognition that the global tech appetite – especially for AI and cloud computing – requires openness to foreign investment.

Observers see this as a direct response to accelerating demand for data infrastructure and China appears to be aiming to attract multinational tech giants eager to tap into its market potential.

In practice, the underwater modules will connect via onshore stations and merge submarine and terrestrial networks into a hybrid system.

Microsoft’s Project Natick

China’s underwater center is inspired by several earlier projects.

Microsoft's Project Natick began in 2013 as an ambitious test of submerged computing, culminating in a deployment of 855 servers off Scotland’s Orkney Islands five years later.

The offshore module delivered surprising stability over its useful life, including lower failure rates than some land-based data centers. This was thanks partly to its sealed, nitrogen-filled environment and minimal human interference.

Yet in 2024, Microsoft confirmed that it would no longer pursue underwater data centers, with the head of operations instead confirming that they would use their learnings to pursue other projects.

Why the retreat? While the experiment succeeded technically, it posed operational challenges, including servicing underwater hardware, isolating against saltwater corrosion, scaling for large AI workloads, and uncertain environmental impacts.

China’s venture is, according to some, more daring in contrast. The project is actively scaling undersea computing in commercial mode rather than a pure research sandbox.

Promise, risks, and tomorrow’s tide

The underwater data center in Hainan could reshape regional digital infrastructure as we know it.

Its computing power is capable of supporting 7,000 DeepSeek conversations per second and the cluster is already serving AI training, industrial simulations, game development, and marine research clients.

If scaled to 100 modules, the project is projected to save 122 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually and reduce freshwater use by sidelining massive conventional cooling infrastructure.

Yet challenges are there. Thermal impacts to marine ecosystems, underwater hardware repairs, and security vulnerabilities (e.g. acoustic interference) are real issues. That’s not to mention the corrosion from seawater.

Even so, China’s move may accelerate global experimentation in submarine data frames.

As Hainan’s underwater modules buzz with electrons and AI routines, they carry a big ambition: to merge oceanography, computing, and investment in the making.

The deep sea may yet prove to be a frontier of data, not deserts, and the ripples of this Chinese gamble may be felt well beyond those waters.

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