Where is the data centre located in China?
China is building the world's first commercial underwater data centre near Sanya, a coastal city off Hainan Island. The Hainan Undersea Data Centre is a project supported by the Sanya government and various other companies and organisations involved in its construction, design, etc.
The project was announced in 2021 and will finish in 2025, costing about $879 million.
What do we know about this data centre?
They're planning to make 100 big storage units for the data centre. Each unit can work for 25 years and survive natural disasters. In just 30 seconds, each storage device can process over four million high-definition photos, acting like 60,000 computers working together.
The first unit was put in place in April, and they recently added another one. The new data centre is as big as almost ten soccer fields. So, building it on the seabed will help save land. This saved land can be used for various other purposes, like building houses, industries, etc.
This new centre will also help save energy and fresh water. It uses freezing seawater to stay cool, which reduces costs. The finished data centre will use less energy compared to the ones on land.
Are underwater data centres dependable?
In 2018, Microsoft's Project Natick team placed a data center 117 feet below the ocean. They watched how well the servers worked for two years before it was taken out of the water. Microsoft thinks undersea data centres are reliable and use energy sustainably.
The Hainan data centre is not the only one under construction in China. Other similar projects are also being done across China.
