Microsoft’s new way of cooling its data centers: Throw them in the sea

Ars Technica:

Traditional data centers use as much electricity for cooling as they do for running the actual IT equipment. Accordingly, much of the innovation seen in the high-density cloud server space has been to develop data centers that are cheaper to cool and hence cheaper to run. With its much higher heat capacity than air, water has become the coolant of choice, pumped around and between the computers to transport their heat outside.

Microsoft has demonstrated an experimental prototype of a new approach: instead of pumping water around the data center, put the data center in the water. Project Natick is a research project to build and run a data center that’s submerged in the ocean.

My first reaction was: Wouldn’t this raise sea temperatures? Phil Dennis-Jordan ran some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations, concluded that all the data centers in the US, if cooled this way, would only raise temperatures a ten-millionth of a degree (centigrade) per year.

And that certainly would be a cost/energy savings over traditional air conditioning methods.

[H/T Carlos Oliveira]