r/stocks
Shipowners pursue floating data centers as Samsung Heavy Industries lead push
Samsung Heavy Industries partners with shipowners to build floating data centers, addressing AI power/cooling constraints via seawater cooling and bypassing land grid delays.
- Floating data centers utilize seawater for efficient cooling, significantly reducing energy costs associated with traditional air-cooling systems.
- Offshore deployment bypasses critical land-based bottlenecks such as grid interconnection delays and scarce real estate in key tech hubs.
- Creates a new stable revenue stream for shipbuilders and owners by transitioning from cyclical freight markets to long-term digital infrastructure leases.
- The technology is in early commercial stages with unproven long-term reliability against harsh marine environments like corrosion and storms.
- High initial capital expenditure and complex maintenance logistics compared to established on-land data center operations.
- Regulatory uncertainties regarding maritime zoning and environmental impact assessments could delay widespread adoption.
As demand for artificial intelligence (AI) data centers surges, global shipowners are turning their attention to "data centers on the sea." They aim to expand revenue beyond the existing business of owning vessels and receiving charter fees by long-term leasing offshore data centers to big tech or cloud operators. Among Korean shipbuilders, Samsung Heavy Industries was the first to join hands with a global shipowner to commercialize a floating data center (FDC).
◇Beyond ships to leasing data centers… inquiries from shipowners for collaboration are pouring in
On the 7th, according to the shipbuilding industry, Samsung Heavy Industries recently received collaboration inquiries on the FDC business from multiple global shipowners. Among them, it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for a joint FDC development project with the Greek shipowner Capital Clean Energy Carriers (hereinafter Capital).
An FDC is a data center installed on a floating structure on a river or at sea, not on land. Large AI data centers require vast sites, massive power, and cooling facilities, but the United States and Europe have recently faced difficulties due to delays in grid interconnection and site shortages. An FDC can be installed in ports, coastal areas, or on rivers, reducing the burden on land sites and using seawater as a cooling source to lower the burden of cooling facilities.
Shipowners are interested in FDCs because they offer a relatively stable revenue structure. Existing vessels such as crude oil tankers, LNG carriers, and container ships see profitability swing widely with the freight cycle. In contrast, data centers are infrastructure with expected long-term demand as AI and cloud adoption spreads. If a model takes hold in which a shipowner owns an FDC and a big tech or cloud operator uses it for an extended period, it becomes a new business model that expands ship assets into digital infrastructure.
Jerry Kalogiratos, CEO of the shipowner Capital that partnered with Samsung Heavy Industries, said, "This collaboration seeks new opportunities at the intersection of maritime and digital infrastructure," adding, "As AI spreads, computing demand is rising rapidly, and floating data centers are becoming a solution with scalability and flexibility."
Not only shipowners but also actual demand sources; big tech and cloud operators, have begun to see offshore data centers as one of their options. Samsung affiliates signed a letter of intent (LOI) in Oct. last year with OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, for cooperation on global AI data center infrastructure. Among them, Samsung C&T and Samsung Heavy Industries agreed to pursue joint development of floating data centers with OpenAI.
◇Samsung Heavy Industries moves ahead with a 50 MW-class design… tasks include verifying power and server stability
Leveraging its experience designing and building floating offshore facilities, Samsung Heavy Industries is accelerating the commercialization of FDCs. An FDC is a business that must reliably integrate not only server space but also power, cooling, communications, and safety systems within an offshore structure. Based on offshore plant experience such as FLNG (floating liquefied natural gas production facilities), Samsung Heavy Industries completed a 50 MW-class FDC concept design and received approval in principle in April from the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and Lloyd's Register.
The power supply method is also a core technology of FDCs. The FDC envisioned by Samsung Heavy Industries can be installed in coastal areas or ports to receive external power via subsea cables and can also be equipped with its own power generation facilities. The 50 MW-class model now being developed as a standard type is considering a self-generation system using a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) method that uses LNG as fuel. Because it can use both external power and onboard generation, Samsung Heavy Industries said it can reduce the burden of grid interconnection compared with land-based data centers.
Experiments with surface and subsea data centers are underway overseas as well. Nautilus Data Technologies in the United States is operating a 6.5 MW barge-type data center at the Port of Stockton, California, and Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) in Japan is considering converting used vessels into data centers. China put a 24 MW subsea data center into operation last month about 10 kilometers offshore from Lingang, Shanghai. Shanghai HiCloud Technology, the operator, said the facility uses offshore wind power and seawater cooling to cut power consumption by 22.8% compared with conventional land-based data centers, while reducing the use of fresh water for cooling and the burden of securing large land sites.
However, many say it will take time for large FDCs to take root as a full-fledged revenue business. Offshore structures are exposed to vibration, inclination, salinity, and humidity changes, so the stability of precision servers must be verified. To confirm the conditions for reliably operating AI servers in a marine environment, Samsung Heavy Industries recently signed a joint development cooperation agreement with the U.S. AI server company Supermicro.
An industry official said, "Rather than immediately replacing land-based data centers, FDCs are more likely to be used first in coastal cities or island regions with severe power and site constraints," adding, "The success or failure of the initial market will hinge on whether sufficient operational data is accumulated and whether strict permitting standards are met."
Or on top of prisons and put the prisoners in giant hamster wheels.
Not sure if you are referring to the actual historic origin of the treadmill or just reinvented the idea.
But for those who don’t know, that is literally what a treadmill is, prisoners fired to walk all day to general powers to mill grain back in England a century or two ago
Do you have any idea how expensive desalination is and that is has very toxic waste by products? Also sea air is hugely damaging to electronics.
Do you have any idea how expensive desalination is
no, they don't
trust me, don't bother, it's not worth the effort
When will this ridiculousness end?
Let's look at how many accounts that hide their history have the same opinion on how wonderful this would be.
No they're a pain in the dick too. Oil production platforms are out there because that's where the oil is. But a data center can be anywhere. So why would you pay so much dragging maintenance staff and parts into the middle of the sea where the waves makes transfers difficult and the seawater corrodes everything when you can put it on land where maintenance staff and parts can come by road.
Not a bad idea really
Not with those fertility rates
Im an engineer that worked on Shipbuilding for 5 years.
The tiny amount of freshwater cruiseships require is irrelevant to the cooling capacity these ships need.
I can imagine they would try and cool with a closed loop freshwater system which heat exchanges with a secondary filtered seawater loop anyway.
Northern Virginia has been packed with data centers for decades and remains one of the wealthiest, highly ranked places in the country to live.
Most people couldn't tell you where most of industrial parks, power plants, warehouses, factories, or substations in their own region are located, many of which are dirtier or more dangerous. Especially your terminally online Redditors who wouldn't even know unless it blocked their basement window.
Northern Virginia itself is probably hitting a limit after hundreds of buildouts. But the number of brain cells being lost over some remote town getting its first data center is hysterical.
The funniest part is when the same people simultaneously claim AI is about to replace every job and swallow the economy. If you genuinely believe the latter, then any town with a data center in its tax jurisdiction, even with partial subsidies, is on its way to becoming a fiscal paradise.
I also saw a video about underwater data centres in China. Sounded smart until you think about it warming the ocean directly
Actually ends up warming things less than one on land, because it doesn't cost so much energy to cool them. It's surprisingly relatively better. Also focal warming in the ocean isn't all bad animals love it.
microsoft already tried project natick. its way too expensive to maintain
Wait until they find out about what algae does, and how nasty salt water is.
There is a reason we don’t put DCs on oil rigs. Spoken as someone who worked for a very large oil company, who 20 years ago, was trying this shit. Quickly retreated back to shore on the end of a wedge of dark fiber.
Your balls are already full of microplastics, so why not