Today, data centers contain thousands of computer servers that generate a great deal of heat. When data centers get too hot, the servers crash. Thermal management is becoming an increasingly important and expensive part of enterprise and industrial computing. Microsoft believes that placing servers underwater in the cold ocean could cool data centers without air conditioning. This relies heavily on passive cooling: the interface must allow for excellent thermal conduction away from heat sources and into the environment.
This solution could also address the exponentially growing energy demands of computing, as Microsoft is considering harvesting electricity from the movement of surrounding seawater. One of the most obvious aspects of the project is that it includes either a turbine or a tidal energy system to generate electricity. For years, major cloud computing providers have been searching for sites around the world where they can utilize green energy and take advantage of the surrounding environment.
The demand for centralized computing has been growing exponentially. Microsoft operates more than 100 data centers worldwide and is expanding rapidly. The company has invested over $15 billion in a global data center network. In 2014, engineers at Microsoft Research's NeXT began exploring a new approach to accelerate the process of adding new computing capacity to cloud computing systems.
Microsoft fabricated a large, white steel tube, eight feet in diameter, covered with heat exchangers, its ends sealed by metal plates and large bolts. Inside was a single data center computing rack bathed in pressurized nitrogen to effectively remove heat from the computer chips. This solution could lead to arrays of large steel tubes connected by fiber optic cables, placed on the seabed or suspended below the surface to capture ocean currents and power turbines that generate electricity.
The company recently completed a 105-day trial of the steel capsule, submerged 30 feet underwater in the Pacific Ocean off the central coast of California. The trial was more successful than expected, even running commercial data processing projects on the Microsoft Azure cloud computing service.
The new underwater capsules are designed to be in place without maintenance for five years. This means the servers, including all interface materials and adhesives, must be durable enough to last five years without requiring repairs. That's more than what's currently expected of these materials, and they will need to be improved to operate for that entire period in the underwater capsule.
If these data centers don't require maintenance, it becomes possible to redesign their physical layout. Servers are placed in racks so they can be serviced by humans. Without maintenance, it may be possible to reorient them more efficiently.
By using these underwater capsules, it may be possible to shorten the deployment time of new data centers from two years to just 90 days, offering a huge cost advantage and much greater flexibility.
Underwater server containers could also help web services work faster. A large portion of the world's population lives in urban centers near oceans. Data centers are typically built in rural areas where land is cheap. The ability to place computing power closer to users reduces the latency they experience.
Such a radical idea could encounter obstacles, such as environmental problems and unforeseen technical issues. Researchers had expressed concern about hardware failures and leaks. The underwater system was equipped with 100 different sensors to measure pressure, humidity, movement, and other conditions to better understand what it's like to operate in an underwater environment, where on-demand repairs are not possible.
The research group has begun designing an underwater system that will be three times larger. It could be built to incorporate an alternative ocean-based energy system. Microsoft engineers said they hope to begin a new test next year, possibly near Florida or in northern Europe, where large tidal energy projects are already underway.
