China has change into the first nation in the world to function an underwater data center, or UDC, powered by wind. Situated off the coast of Shanghai, the complicated represents a major advance in the nation’s technique to safe vitality provides in the face of the accelerated development of synthetic intelligence, scale back dependence on fossil fuels, and scale back the environmental influence of its expertise infrastructure.
The initiative is the results of a collaboration between personal firm HiCloud Know-how and state-owned China Communications Building, which concerned an funding of 1.6 billion yuan, equal to about $236 million.
With an preliminary capability of 24 megawatts, the facility is submerged at a depth of 10 meters in the Lin-gang Particular Zone, inside the China Pilot Free Commerce Zone in Shanghai. This location permits seawater to be used as a pure cooling system, decreasing the proportion of vitality used to cool the infrastructure to lower than 10 %.
This function solves considered one of the predominant vitality consumption challenges of standard information facilities, the place air-con programs usually account for 40 to 50 % of the complete electrical energy required to function.
The thermal effectivity of the UDC is immediately mirrored in its power-usage effectiveness, or PUE. This metric is utilized by the trade to consider the vitality efficiency of an information heart; 1.0 represents the most theoretical effectivity. In its first part, the Lin-gang facility is designed to obtain a PUE of not more than 1.15, a determine thought of state-of-the-art inside the trade.
Below this identical cooling precept, HiCloud opened the world’s first business underwater information heart in 2023 in Hainan, an island situated in southern China. Nonetheless, the Shanghai complicated marks a milestone as the first to function utilizing offshore wind energy.
Building of the UDC was accomplished in mid-October final 12 months. According to the Chinese government, “in contrast to conventional onshore information facilities, the undertaking is designed to use greater than 95 % inexperienced electrical energy, decreasing vitality consumption by 22.8 %, and water and land use by one hundred pc and greater than 90 %, respectively.”
The opening of the complicated is an necessary step in China’s efforts to optimize vitality provide by way of renewable sources and, at the identical time, maintain its management in computing capability linked to AI improvement.
A report just lately printed by the UN factors out that solely 32 international locations host information facilities specialised in synthetic intelligence. Of that world infrastructure, about 90 % is concentrated in two nations: China and the United States.
Each powers have taken steps to safe the vitality demanded by AI improvement, albeit by way of completely different approaches. Whereas the United States has decreased investments and proposals associated to the vitality transition, China seeks to scale back its dependence on fossil fuels each to meet its local weather targets and to scale back its vulnerability to external suppliers.
Beijing’s vitality self-sufficiency technique stands out on this context. As the world’s largest vitality shopper, the nation is exploring applied sciences ranging from the use of supplies corresponding to thorium and bismuth to the accelerated growth of renewable energies and nuclear technology.
Final 12 months, a brand new vitality legislation got here into drive, which prioritizes the improvement of renewable sources and hydrogen so as to scale back dependence on fossil fuels and strengthen nationwide vitality safety. The laws additionally obliges the authorities to set minimal targets for consumption from clear sources.
In parallel, the nation launched a profound reform of its electrical energy market. As of June 2025, all photo voltaic and wind vitality is required to be traded by way of market mechanisms or auctions, progressively eliminating the previous feed-in tariff schemes. These measures, accompanied by monetary incentives and the phasing out of legacy subsidies, purpose to increase funding in clear applied sciences and enhance the effectivity of the vitality system.
China’s vitality transition is not solely pushed by environmental concerns. It is additionally a part of a long-term financial and geopolitical technique geared toward strengthening its technological and industrial autonomy. On this context, the launch of the UDC represents a major step ahead that strengthens the nation’s place vis-à-vis the United States and the remainder of the world in the race to construct the infrastructure that may help the subsequent technology of synthetic intelligence and different technological advances.
This article initially appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish.
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