Source: The Register: Biting the hand that feeds
Microsoft, Google, and startups are reviving aquatic datacenter projects to solve heat dissipation and energy costs, but submerged deployments still face corrosion, cable management, and regulatory complexity that land-based hyperscale sites have largely solved. The economics only work for niche use cases—edge computing in coastal regions or isolated research stations—where avoiding expensive grid infrastructure justifies the operational overhead. Waterborne computing will remain marginal. As cooling becomes the binding constraint for AI infrastructure expansion, even projects with obvious drawbacks get second looks.