This seems like the sort of idea that on the surface sounds really innovative and “outside the box” but will sink like a stone when put into action

Makes infinitely more sense than in space.

Power, maintainence, and cooling all seem easier

"Why bring the water to data centers if we can bring the data centers to water?"

-- some dumbass exec

You know what to do, killer orcas

Pirates are gonna have an awesome day. I will buy all the stuff they can steal from it.

Pirates of the Caribbean

What a beautiful coincidence.

I am building ethically sourced, renewable, solar powered torpedoes, and I will not be seeking regulatory approval.

because the ocean warming and inevitable collapse of the gulf stream wasnt happening fast enough, apparently.

It's slightly less stupid than data centers in space I suppose. But I still find it pretty weird.

You will have to be tethered to land anyway. Properly high bandwidth networking as you would usually see to connect a data center (on the order of a dozen terabits per second) only exists through fiber optic cables. I'm sure of this point, because optical networking is my day-job, though we only run 400 Gbit/s links on the fastest edges since we're a small national network.

As for power, well there are 80 MW ship engines (e.g. Wärtsilä-Sulzer RT-flex96C, which has even been built in Korea under license before), so it's not impossible I suppose. But if you are tethered, then the country you're tethered to will probably forbid you from burning bunker fuel for 80 MW on its coast. At which point you'd be reduced to running clean diesel or something. That I expect would make the power more costly than just tethering to an electric grid

So now we have a big barge rather than a ship. What do you really save then? I guess the price of the land? And you gain access to copious amounts of saltwater, so you can do closed loop cooling with freshwater, and do the secondary heat exchange to the ocean. But you could do that by building on the coast too. Okay I guess you might gain tsunami security over a coastal building.

If this is a real proposal why don't they tell us the material advantages they expect, rather than making us guess?

Heating up random parts of the ocean, can only good happen!

What if it sinks

Ironic, considering AI is built on piracy

Poseidon plz 🥺

Has claimed that it is planning to build

FTFY

How will the data centers be connected to the Internet? Satellite? Sounds expensive.. Or those cruise ships selling their internet data packages are all lying about how expensive is to have satellite internet..

Terrible article. Does not answer the "why" question. What is the advantage? All it says is that "Seasides can ease the pains of giant mainland AI date centers". Is it just skirting around taxes and rules, like a floating casino? The ship would have a shoreside power connection or power itself as well apparently. Would the ships generators be subject to the same emission requirements as shoreside plants?

Seems like just a floating barge that will not really be out at sea, just sitting in protected bays or up waterways. Cooling water, would have to use a closed circuit freshwater system with heat exchangers cooling it with saltwater. That would consume less water than the evaporation cooling method, but still is not listed a possible reason.

Ships are expensive. What is the reason for floating a data center? Cheaper than land near big cities? Less regulations? Less taxes? Cooling water? Cheaper electricity?

Tweaker version of Red October where they steal all the copper: “Itsh a game of chesh against our old adversary…”

Wait, isn’t this what happened in Snowcrash?

Makes sense. Leaves our potable water alone and keeps the fuckers out of sight. They could even put in wind turbines to power the fucking things.

JK but the oceans aren't really warming up fast enough. Maybe a buttload of gpus may help?

Yupp, I've heard that the sea need more help heating up....

Warming local water systems will have zero effect on the local environment and wildlife

I’ve seen pictures of data centers with parking lots full of cars. Are they going to ferry people to and from work each shift?

Reasonability of the solution aside, Samsung is uniquely positioned to propose such project as one of the largest electronics manufacturer and shipmaker in the world.

What regulatory approval do you need if it's in international waters

Good torpedo targets

Samsung: Can we have AI monies too?

I always kinda wondered how biblical ocean boiling would come about.

Honestly if they are going to build a datacenter anyway, this is my preferred way to go. Plenty of water for cooling, power is harder but not impossible.