Microsoft shelves its underwater data center
Microsoft has ended its underwater data center experiment, noting improved server longevity underwater. Despite success, Microsoft shifts focus to other projects like AI supercomputers and nuclear ambitions, discontinuing further underwater endeavors.
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Microsoft has ended its Project Natick underwater data center experiment, citing a shift in focus. The project, which started in 2013, aimed to explore the feasibility of underwater data centers. Microsoft reported fewer server failures in the underwater setup compared to land-based servers, attributing this to seawater's temperature stability and the use of inert nitrogen gas for server protection. Despite the success in server longevity, Microsoft has decided not to pursue further underwater data center projects. The company plans to apply the learnings from this experiment to other cases, focusing on energy efficiency and operational improvements. While China has initiated its own submerged server project, Microsoft has not indicated any future underwater data center endeavors. Instead, Microsoft is redirecting its efforts towards collaborations like building a $100 billion AI supercomputer data center with OpenAI and exploring nuclear ambitions for modular reactors. The decision to discontinue the underwater data center project reflects Microsoft's strategic realignment towards more focused research and development initiatives.
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10 commentsIt doesn't sound like they really discontinued the project. It sounds like it got moved to another team.
That therefore begs the question: what are the narrowest points of failure in a system like this? For example it would be naive to have 140 fungible compute nodes if they all went through a single networking switch. Node workloads can be moved but a switch failure makes the entire container useless.
This works physically as well. Marine vessels have sealed bulkheads such that a hull breach in one end doesn’t cause flooding in the other end.
How do these vessels fan out all the other points of failure and what are the error rates in those components?
I wonder what factors led them to discontinue the project.
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