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The explosion of artificial intelligence and cloud computing is forcing the tech industry to radically rethink the location of its data centers. Between the deep sea and Earth's orbit, a silent revolution is redesigning the future of global digital technology.
China is multiplying bold initiatives in terms of submarine data centers.
In October 2025, the country immersed an experimental data center developed by Highlander (Hailanyun Technology) at a depth of 30 meters in the Yellow Sea off Shanghai, including 198 high-performance server racks capable of training a model like GPT-3.5 in one day. This infrastructure, powered by more than 95% of it by offshore wind energy, marks a major technological breakthrough.
But that is only the beginning. Off the coast of Hainan Island, a colossal 1,433 tons data center was submerged 35 meters deep, with each module weighing 1,300 tons and capable of processing more than four million high-definition images in 30 seconds, equivalent to 60,000 computers working simultaneously. The project foresees the deployment of a hundred modules by 2030.
The benefits are considerable and respond to current energy challenges:
Free natural cooling : Seawater acts as a natural heat sink, reducing energy requirements related to cooling to less than 10% of the total, an overall reduction in energy consumption of almost 23%. Traditionally, terrestrial data centers consume up to 40% of their energy for cooling alone.
Freshwater saving : In 2025, data centers consume 1.3 trillion liters of water, which is as much as 26 million people in a year, a figure that could triple by the end of the decade. Underwater installations completely eliminate this problem.
Optimization of space : The giant Chinese datacenter makes it possible to free up 68,000 m² of surface area that the 100 modules would occupy on land.
Record energy performance : The Shanghai datacenter aims for a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) of 1.15, while the Chinese national target for 2025 is set at 1.25, placing this installation among the most efficient in the world.
Microsoft popularized the idea with its experimental Natick project launched in 2018, which immersed a data center in Scottish waters for two years. While experience has shown technical feasibility, Microsoft has not announced a concrete follow-up to Natick, the prototype having fulfilled its demonstration mission without leading to a commercial model.
Despite the ecological promises, experts are sounding the alarm on several aspects:
Localized thermal pollution : A professor of electrical engineering at the University of California explains that a 500 kW project is equivalent to placing some 300 auxiliary heaters under the sea, which could destabilize fragile, shallow, and ecologically dense ecosystems.
Impact on biodiversity : The heat released could attract some species and repel others, with insufficient research on these impacts.
Technical challenges : Watertightness, protection against corrosion, vulnerability to attacks by sound waves in marine environments, and the complexity of the Internet connection between an offshore center and the mainland represent major obstacles.
In parallel with underwater experiments, a race to space is accelerating with several major players.
Axiom Space : The American company announced the launch of its first two orbital data center nodes (ODC) in low Earth orbit by the end of 2025, which will provide storage, secure data processing, and AI/ML solutions directly to satellites and constellations. These nodes will be part of Kepler Communications' optical relay network with 2.5 Gbps optical links.
Starcloud : This startup backed by NVIDIA plans to build a 5 gigawatt orbital data center with solar and cooling panels about 4 kilometers wide and long. The company projects that energy costs in space will be 10 times cheaper than terrestrial options, even including launch expenses. A satellite equipped with an NVIDIA H100 GPU was supposed to be launched in November 2025 to test the functionality in orbit.
ADA Space (China) : On May 14, 2025, the Chinese company deployed 12 satellites that were among the first in the world to offer an orbital cloud infrastructure service, not only to transfer data, but also to store it in embedded data centers. These satellites offer a computing capacity of 5 peta operations per second with a storage capacity of 30 terabytes. The project aims to deploy a constellation of 2,800 satellites.
SpaceX : Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX plans to build orbital data centers by developing its next-generation Starlink V3 satellites with terabit capacity per satellite and launches scheduled as early as 2026.
Unlimited solar power : Constant exposure to the Sun in orbit means nearly infinite solar energy, with no need for batteries or backup power.
Passive cooling : The heat generated is passively radiated to the infinite heat sink in space where the temperature is around -270°C, using 1m square deployable black plates.
Real-time processing : Real-time data processing in space offers immense benefits for critical applications such as forest fire detection, response to distress signals, and terrestrial observation.
Reduced satellite latency : After an observation, a satellite could transmit its raw data to an orbital storage and processing center directly, avoiding repatriation to Earth.
Start-up costs : A 5 GW data center would require around 100 launches for GPUs and another 100 for solar panels and heaters. Economic viability is based on the reduction of space launch costs.
Risk of collision : With more than 7,500 active satellites in orbit, the increase in collisions represents a major regulatory challenge.
Complex maintenance : The repair and maintenance of equipment in orbit remain extremely complex and expensive.
For tech startups : Orbital cloud infrastructure opens new markets for applications requiring real-time processing of spatial data: terrestrial observation, local weather forecasts, detection of crop types, 3D radar mapping.
For SMEs : With cooling costs accounting for a major part of operational expenses, subsea and space solutions could offer substantial savings in the medium term, freeing up budgets for innovation.
For big businesses : Digital sovereignty is becoming a strategic issue. The Hainan project benefits from favorable legislation allowing foreign companies to own telecommunications and data center infrastructures.
Reducing the carbon footprint : Space data centers promise 10 times greater CO2 savings over their lifetime compared to terrestrial data centers.
New digital geopolitics : China is investing heavily in these technologies to strengthen its position in the race for global digital sovereignty, creating competitive pressure for Western businesses.
Enhanced resilience : Orbital data centers can operate independently of terrestrial infrastructures, improving the resilience and security of emerging mesh networks in orbit.
China has tightened its regulations: since March 2025, new centers must cover 80% of their consumption through green certificates, in line with the objective of carbon neutrality by 2060.
Regulatory challenges for space mainly concern the management of orbital space, space debris, and international security standards.
The CEO of Starcloud predicts that “in 10 years, almost every new data center will be built in space.” This vision, while optimistic, reflects a profound trend.
Shanghai aims to develop a cloud and intelligent computing industry worth more than 28 billion dollars by 2027, with a total computing capacity of 200 ExaFLOPS. Several companies are already collaborating to develop a cluster of 500 MW subsea data centers.
For entrepreneurs, three key lessons:
