China redefines CPU water cooling with an huge 130,000 ton data center under the sea

China under sea servers
(Image credit: Tang Fei)

You know those dystopian notions of seas boiling over thanks to climate change? Well, China has a neat idea to accelerate a process which is already giving us the warmest sea surface temps on record. Heating up the oceans directly with computers.

OK, that's rather facetious; there have been numerous studies into such an endeavour, with Microsoft running a similar setup for two years near the Orkney Islands just off Scotland with some ecological success. But China has reportedly begun construction on what's claimed to be the world's first undersea data center. Allegedly, once complete the facility will have the computing power of "six million conventional personal computers."

It's unclear exactly what that means or what the hardware involved comprises. But it will be made of of no fewer than 100 of the huge looking "nodes" pictured above, each of which weighs an incredible 1,300 tons. However, you slice it, then, it's a lot of kit being submerged 35m under water off the coast of Sanya, Hainan province, China.

Central to the entire premise is using sea water as the primary coolant. It's said that this will save a hefty 122 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually on cooling compared with a conventional on-land data center.

It would be interesting to know how the net warming footprint compares between this approach and electrically powered air-cooling solutions of existing data centers. The thermal impact of a single server farm would just be a drop in the ocean, if you'll pardon the pun. Though if there were thousands of such nodes that might be a different matter. 

YouTube YouTube
Watch On

This isn't the first time we've heard of computer servers being dumped in the sea for cooling purposes. But this Chinese installation does seem to be on a rather unprecedented and epic scale.

Exactly how practical all this is, well, that's an open question. Swapping out dead CPUs, SSDs or whole servers would, we assume, be off the cards with this kind of installation. In the Microsoft experiment which finished in 2020 it sealed the undersea chamber, filling it with dry nitrogen which made for a far less corrosive atmosphere than an oxygen-rich one, improving reliability over a land-based equivalent. 

There's no indication here that the new server farm is doing the same thing, but the nodes or modules are apparently each designed to run for 25 years and perhaps the very long term idea is they can be individually recovered and serviced.

Anyway, the full 100 nodes are slated to have been installed by 2025, so if you pop out for a dip around then and find it's a little warmer than you expected, well, you'll know why.

Best CPU for gamingBest gaming motherboardBest graphics cardBest SSD for gaming


Best CPU for gaming: Top chips from Intel and AMD.
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards.
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits.
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game first.

Jeremy Laird
Hardware writer

Jeremy has been writing about technology and PCs since the 90nm Netburst era (Google it!) and enjoys nothing more than a serious dissertation on the finer points of monitor input lag and overshoot followed by a forensic examination of advanced lithography. Or maybe he just likes machines that go “ping!” He also has a thing for tennis and cars.

Read more
An artistic 3D render of the inside of a data centre, with many network wires criss-crossing across the server racks. The entire image is bathed in blue light.
AI Atlantis revealed off the coast of China, reportedly boasting computational power equivalent to 30,000 high-end gaming PCs
A screenshot of a video on BiliBilli showing an air conditioning unit attached to a PC with Nvidia, AMD and Intel stickers.
The definition of overkill: Cooling an RTX 4090 to a claimed 20°C with a household air conditioning unit
AMD Epyc 4th gen server processor on motherboard
AMD sees record revenue of $25.8 billion in 2024 thanks to data center growth—gaming last seen tumbling into a ditch
Two pictures of Billet Labs' copper gaming PCs
This 4090-equipped water-cooled copper PC 'looks like a steam engine' and I'm in love
A SpaceX rocket being launched into space carrying a payload with the first datacentre for the moon.
A rocket was just fired into space containing the first data center to land on the moon, which is both incredible and incredibly corporate in equal measure
Meta Project Waterworth map
Meta announces plans for epic new undersea data cable longer than the circumference of the Earth
Latest in Cooling
Photo of Thermal Grizzly TG Putty
Thermal Grizzly TG Putty review
A screenshot of a video on BiliBilli showing an air conditioning unit attached to a PC with Nvidia, AMD and Intel stickers.
The definition of overkill: Cooling an RTX 4090 to a claimed 20°C with a household air conditioning unit
A Noctua NH-L12S cooler installed on a motherboard.
Noctua NH-L12S review
A Be Quiet! cooler installed on a motherboard inside a gaming PC.
Air coolers are still cool
The Thermaltake's new liquid cooler with a screen to display images and videos
You've heard of a CPU cooler screen, but have you heard of a *curved* CPU cooler screen? Apparently it has 'unmatched performance and visual appeal'
The Noctua NH-D15 G2 all put together.
Noctua NH-D15 G2 review
Latest in News
Fallout New Vegas Key Art
The Fallout season 2 leaks continue with videos of the New Vegas set, including a sign for Mr. House's casino
Gallywix wears an uneasy smile as he's confronted by Xal'atath in WoW: The War Within.
World of Warcraft guild uses exploits to get world 'first' on the game's new raid, gets banned, puts its name backwards and does it again
Photo of BlizzCon 2023 main stage
BlizzCon 2025 isn't happening, meaning the event will miss its 20th anniversary, but it will return in 2026 to 'meaningfully elevate this iconic celebration'
Shohei Ohtani wearing Samurai Shohei outfit in Fortnite
The best baseball player alive is coming to Fortnite, and so is his dog
Mech in dry dock with person standing on catwalk underneath
How long can a live service game last? Theoretically, 'forever,' says Mecha Break developer: 'The last game I was in charge of has been alive and well for 16 years'
A computer screen with program code warning of a detected malware script program. 3d illustration
Coder faces 10 years' jailtime for creating a 'kill switch' that screwed-up his employers' systems when he was laid off