NetworkOcean isn’t alone in its ambitions. Founded in 2021, US-based Subsea Cloud operates around 13,500 computing servers in unspecified underwater locations in Southeast Asia to serve AI and gaming clients, says the startup’s founder and CEO Maxie Reynolds. “It’s a nascent market,” she says. “But it’s currently the only one that can sustainably handle current and projected loads.”
Subsea has obtained a permit for each site and uses remotely operated robots for maintenance, according to Reynolds. It plans to commission its first subsea GPUs next year and is also considering private sites, which Reynolds said would ease the complexity of permitting. Subsea says it is not significantly increasing water temperatures, though it has not released independent reports.
NetworkOcean also believes it will cause negligible warming. “Our model shows a 2-degree Fahrenheit change in an 8-square-foot area, or a 0.004-degree Fahrenheit change in the surface area of the body” of water, Mendel says. He feels confident about Microsoft’s finding that water a few meters downstream From his test he warmed up only slightly.
Protected bay
According to Mumley, a former water board official, Bay Area projects cannot raise water temperatures more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit at any time or place. But two biologists who spoke to WIRED say any increase worries them because it can incubate harmful algae and attract invasive species.
Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside who studies the environmental impact of AI, compares plans for an underwater data center with NetworkOcean’s announced capacity, when fully operational, to running about 300 room heaters. (Mendel disputes this concern, citing the seemingly minimal impact of Project Natick.) A few years ago, a project A project to use San Francisco Bay water to cool an onshore data center failed to win approval after public concerns were raised, including over temperatures.
San Francisco Bay has an average depth of about 13 feet, and saltwater from the Pacific Ocean flows in from beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and mixes with fresh runoff from a huge swath of Northern California. Experts say it’s unclear whether any part of the bay would be suitable for more than a small demonstration amid its muddy, shallow, salty and turbulent parts.
In addition, permits may require demonstrating to at least nine regulatory agencies and several major nonprofits that a data center would be worth building, according to agency spokespeople and five Bay Area policy experts. For example, under the law Administered by the Conservation and Development Commission, the public benefit of a project must “clearly exceed” the detriment, and developers must show that there is no suitable location on the land.
Other agencies consider waste emissions and harm to the region’s few endangered fish and birds (including the infamous delta smelt). Even a temporary project requires approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which reviews obstructions to boat and ship traffic, and the water board. “For example, temporarily placing a large structure in a seagrass bed could have lingering effects on seagrass, which is critical habitat for certain fish,” says the water board’s Lichten.
NetworkOcean’s Kim told WIRED that the company is aware of the concerns and is avoiding sensitive habitats. His co-founder, Mendel, says they reached out to one of the region’s regulators. In March, NetworkOcean spoke to an unspecified representative of the U.S. Coast Guard about testing on the bottom of the bay and pumping in seawater as a coolant. The company then shifted to current plans near the surface that don’t involve pumping. (A Coast Guard spokesperson declined to comment without more clarity on who NetworkOcean reportedly reached out to.)
For permanent facilities, Kim and Mendel say they are considering other locations in the United States and abroad, which they declined to name, and are in contact with relevant regulators.
Mendel insists the “San Francisco Bay” test announced last month will go ahead, and soon. “We are still building the ship,” he says. A community of marine scientists will keep their thermometers close by.