China Debuts Pioneering Wind-Powered Underwater Data Center

Revolutionary Green Computing Infrastructure

China has completed construction of what sources indicate is the world’s first wind-powered underwater data center, located in the Lin-gang Special Area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone. The $226 million project represents a significant advancement in sustainable, high-performance computing infrastructure that could transform how data centers are powered and cooled.

Revolutionary Green Computing Infrastructure
Renewable Energy Integration
Innovative Cooling Solution
Advanced Computing Applications
Expansion Plans and Industry Context
Technical Challenges and Future Development

Renewable Energy Integration

According to reports, the facility draws more than 95% of its electricity from offshore wind power, making it one of the greenest data centers ever built. The project combines renewable energy with natural seabed cooling to substantially reduce both energy consumption and land use. Analysts suggest this approach could set a new standard for environmentally conscious data center design.

The report states that compared to traditional terrestrial data centers, the underwater installation is designed to reduce total power consumption by an estimated 22.8%. Additionally, the facility completely eliminates freshwater use and reduces land requirements by more than 90%, addressing two critical environmental concerns associated with conventional data centers.

Innovative Cooling Solution

Cooling represents one of the most significant energy demands in data center operations, typically accounting for 40-50% of total power consumption. The underwater facility leverages seawater as a natural cooling system, which engineers suggest could reduce cooling-related energy use to below 10% of total consumption.

Phase one of the project has reportedly achieved a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating of no higher than 1.15, significantly better than China’s national requirement of 1.25 for large-scale data centers by 2025. This efficiency metric demonstrates the substantial energy savings possible through the underwater cooling approach.

Advanced Computing Applications

Rather than serving merely as data storage, the facility will power sophisticated computing applications according to official sources. The underwater data center will support artificial intelligence workloads and high-end model training, while also providing computing infrastructure for 5G networks, industrial Internet of Things, and e-commerce platforms.

Essentially, the installation will function as a green, high-performance underwater computing cluster that forms part of the region’s backbone for international data flows. This positions the facility at the forefront of both environmental sustainability and technological capability.

Expansion Plans and Industry Context

The current 2.3-MW demonstration facility represents only the first phase of development. According to project plans, Phase 2 will scale capacity to 24 MW, though no specific timeline for this expansion has been announced. The Shanghai municipal government has reportedly announced intentions to scale up its intelligent computing cloud industry by more than ¥200 billion by 2027, targeting computing capacity of 200 EFLOPS.

This project follows China’s earlier launch of another underwater data center off Hainan Province, which became the world’s first commercial underwater data center. However, the Lin-gang facility is the first to integrate offshore wind power generation with subsea cooling on such a substantial commercial scale.

Technical Challenges and Future Development

Despite the promising technology, engineers acknowledge that underwater data center construction remains in its initial stages. According to Wang Shifeng, chairman of China Communications Construction Company’s Third Harbor Engineering, achieving the transition from demonstration projects to large-scale application will require continued progress in technological maturity and cost optimization.

Industry observers suggest that key challenges include potential maintenance costs, corrosion management, and environmental impact assessment. The marine environment presents unique engineering hurdles that will need to be addressed as the technology evolves from prototype to widespread implementation.