Microsoft Research's brand new concept could use underwater data centers to power cloud services for about half of the world's human population of 7.4 billion people. The operating system giant's Project Natick would include a steel submarine capsule lying on the ocean floor. It could be self-sustaining for five years without needing any repairs from a technician, and end the high cooling costs required for traditional server farms.
Last year Microsoft completed its first underwater mission off the coast of California. From August to November (105 days) it deployed its Leona Philpot prototype (named after a character from the Halo video game) with one server rack, according to PCWorld. Pressurized nitrogen surrounded the hardware to cool it down.
The Project Natick capsules are designed to last for two decades. They are taken out of the water every five years in order to swap servers.
The Bill Gates co-founded company points out some key benefits of underwater datacenters. For example, they slash cooling costs and emissions by using the water's lower temperatures.
Deep-sea capsules can also be constructed and deployed within three months. It could make it deal for major media events such as the Super Bowl, and could be dropped in a disaster zone to provide super-fast data access.
PCWorld also points out that half of the world's population lives less than 124 miles (200 kilometers) from an ocean. Installing offshore data centers could transfer digital info from a server to mobile devices or PCs much faster.
Microsoft started developing the idea of underwater data centers in 2013. That is when Microsoft employees including one with experience in a Navy submarine wrote a paper about the concept, according to Re/code.
This is not the first time Microsoft has put data centers in unorthodox places. It teamed up in 2011 with the University of Virginia to develop the "data furnace" concept, which involved mini data centers whose exhaust heat could warm up a house or office building.
Other companies have also come up with unique data centers. Facebook built one in Sweden to use the area's freezing temperatures to cut cooling costs, while Google's data center in Finland uses a seawater cooling system.
Here's a Google data center: