Microsoft Project Natick Underwater Data Center Experiment

Microsoft Ends Project Natick Underwater Data Center Experiment

Microsoft has ended the Project Natick underwater data center experiment after over a decade of work, citing the quiet years leading up to this point as the reason. Noelle Walsh, the head of the company’s Cloud Operations + Innovation (CO+I) division, confirmed this situation with the statement ‘We are not setting up underwater data centers anywhere in the world‘ in an interview with Data Center Dynamics.

Lessons Learned to be Applied in the Future

Despite Microsoft abandoning its underwater plans, Walsh stated that the company will apply the lessons learned from the project to future endeavors. ‘My team has worked on this and demonstrated that it works. We have learned a lot about operations below the sea level, vibrations, and impacts on servers. Therefore, we will apply these learnings in other situations as well.’ The project started in 2013 and gained further recognition in 2018 with the placement of a test unit on the shores of the Orkney Islands in Scotland. Operating for 5 years, the underwater data center was designed to significantly reduce the industry’s environmental impact. Microsoft mentioned that half of the world’s population lives within 200 km of the coast, and by using local renewable energy sources and minimizing external cooling needs, this system would reduce delays.

With advancements in artificial intelligence, more infrastructure is needed to support resource usage, preparing the data center industry for continuous growth. Considering the scrutiny faced by major technology companies regarding energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, it is not yet known why Microsoft decided not to continue with this project.

To Be Used as a Research Platform in the Future

These underwater data centers have shown to be more efficient and effective compared to their on-land counterparts. Microsoft stated, ‘Although we currently do not have data centers underwater, we will continue to use Project Natick as a research platform to explore, test, and validate new concepts related to data center reliability and sustainability, such as liquid immersion‘.