there are data centers at the bottom of the ocean I'm not crazy there's not very
many of them this is still very much experimental but it's an idea that could
revolutionize waste heat management which is something I think about a lot
in 2015 Microsoft sunk its first
prototype underwater data center off the coast of California and left it there
for 2 months in 2018 they did it again
they sunk an airtight metal storage tank with 864 servers and 27.6 pedabytes of
storage near the Scottish orne islands 117 ft below the surface they declared
that experiment a success after 2 years
noting that the sealed server tank had an eighth of the failure rate of a
conventional data center now as promising as these results are there are
some obvious drawbacks to sinking a server in a large natural body of water
using a data Center's waste heat to warm a local swimming pool is relatively easy
in comparison because because we're dealing with a controlled artificial
environment but humans aside from Jason Mamoa cannot control the ocean see the
problem with the ocean is that it is incredibly deep and Incredibly salty
like a goth girl with tret cards ocean water has a typical salinity of 3.5%
compared to freshwater which has a salinity of 0.5% or less what this means
is that saltwater is essentially an electrolyte solution which increases
conductivity and chemically accelerates corrosion that's not an insurmountable
barrier though because Humanity has a lot of experience protecting the
submerged parts of metal watercraft through anti-corrosion Coatings like
specialized paint active galvanic protection and colar enamel of course we
could also use freshwater sources like relatively deep Lakes but the ocean
being massive would allow us to implement sunken servers on a much
larger scale you'd still need data centers to serve population centers
further in land but around 40% of the global population lives within 100 miles
of the coast which is nothing to sneeze at now another problem is that water is
actually pretty heavy with every additional 100 ft below sea level we're
piling on an extra three atmospheres of pressure but we're never going to put
these data centers anywhere other than the relatively shallow continental shelf
because we'd want them to be relatively close by fortunately a typical
cylindrical storage container with thick metal walls can easily withstand the
pressure of a few hundred ft of seawater these data centers also have to be
reliably anchored in place to stop them from shifting you wouldn't be able to
tell just by looking but there are strong currents deep underneath the
surface not to mention that hurricanes can churn up water from hundreds of feet
deep and sometimes wind up disturbing sunken wrecks on the seafloor the 2018
Microsoft Data Center used a triangular base loaded with heavy ballist it also
wound up coated in a layer of algae and colonized by C anemones after only 2
years underwater animal interference isn't too much of an issue for a thick
metal container but any cable leading to or from the container should ideally be
wrapped in Kevlar and buried below the seabed to protect it from shark attacks
oh that's not a joke for unclear reasons possibly related to sharks Electro
receptive senses they occasionally Chomp on undersea cables but these are all
solvable problems with current technology and the idea has enormous
potential benefits we'll tell you more after we thank HRS for sponsoring this
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performance today the primary advantage of syncing servers is consistent Rel
relatively cheap cooling on the surface temperature and humidity vary from hour
to hour the bottom of the ocean however has an extremely consistent cold
temperature that's because deep bodies of water typically stratify by density
which means that they also stratify by temperature so even though the surface
of the water gets heated by the Sun and stirred by the wind that water rarely
interacts with the layers of Colder denser water deep below when the server
is surrounded by consistent low temperature water less additional energy
is expended on the cooling process which is a cost and efficiency win but also a
marginal environmental win likewise large data centers in major urban areas
can cost a fair amount in rent because they compete for space with offices
Industries and airbnbs data centers are
one of the few business assets that could be relocated to the bottom of the
ocean where they wouldn't really compete with fish so much as get gradually
colonized by them if we were then able to leave these servers in place and not
touch them for around a decade the disruption to the benic biome would be
minimal these underwater data servers also take advantage of an idea that has
been used on land sealing the servers in an airtight oxygen-free environment that
is instead filled with a dry neutral gas like nitrogen nitrogen is less corrosive
than oxygen and nonflammable increasing server longevity and preventing fires in
these conditions the lack of on-site maintenance has a hidden advantage human
machine interactions always have the possibility of bumps jostling and other
forms of human error that increase the risk of accidental damage a much much
lower failure rate means that with sufficient redundancy the server can be
left in place with drives replaced only during scheduled turnover speaking of
turnover my turn to speak is now over thanks for watching like dislike or
check out this video on the history of water cooling feel free to comment below
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