Dubai: China has launched the world’s first commercial underwater data centre that gets its power from offshore wind energy. This is a step forward for sustainable technology.
The Shanghai Lingang Undersea Data Centre is 10 kilometres off the coast of Shanghai. It is under the ocean surface, 30 feet down. This centre is special because it uses technology that works under the sea and gets its power from wind farms near it. The centre cost $226 million to build. It gets more than 95 per cent of its power from these wind farms.
One of the problems with data centres is that they get too hot. They use a lot of electricity and water to keep the servers cool. This underwater centre uses the ocean to keep the servers cool. This means it uses a lot of energy. The people in charge in China say that this centre uses more than 95 per cent green energy. It uses 23 per cent more energy than other centres. It does not use any freshwater at all. It uses 90 per cent less land than other data centres.
This is happening at a time when more and more people are using Artificial Intelligence and cloud computing. Experts are worried that data centres are using too much electricity and water. So we need to find ways to make them more sustainable. Microsoft tried something like this before off the coast of Scotland. China is the first country to make it work on a big scale using renewable energy.
Experts think that this project is very important for reducing the harm that data centres do to the environment. They are still not sure about some things, like how much it will cost to keep it running and whether it can be done in other places. The centre in Shanghai is going to be a test to see if this kind of technology can work for the future. It uses energy, advanced engineering and the ocean to keep it cool. This will help with the generation of computers.
