China Starts 24 MW Underwater Data Center in Shanghai as Offshore Wind Powers 2,000 Servers
Updated
Updated · Tom's Hardware · May 18
China Starts 24 MW Underwater Data Center in Shanghai as Offshore Wind Powers 2,000 Servers
3 articles · Updated · Tom's Hardware · May 18
Full commercial operations began last week at a $226 million underwater data center off Shanghai’s Lingang area, after trial runs in February and project completion in October 2025.
The 24 MW facility houses nearly 2,000 servers for AI, big-data annotation and 5G workloads, with nearby offshore wind farms supplying a substantial share of its electricity.
Sealed subsea modules sit about 35 meters underwater, using seawater as a passive heat sink that Chinese media say helps push power usage effectiveness below 1.15, versus roughly 1.5 for many conventional sites.
That design targets a key AI bottleneck—cooling dense GPU racks—but also raises maintenance and reliability challenges including corrosion, pressure sealing, cable durability and harder hardware replacement.
The Shanghai launch extends a broader search for lower-power AI infrastructure after earlier tests such as Microsoft’s Project Natick showed underwater systems could cut hardware failures.
Is China's subsea data center a green solution for AI, or a strategic play for technological dominance?
Can we cool the world's power-hungry AI servers in the ocean without creating a new environmental crisis?