China officially activated world’s first offshore wind-powered underwater data center entering full commercial operation off coast of Shanghai’s Lingang Special Area. The $226 million facility sits 35 meters below surface housing approximately 2,000 servers drawing more than 95% electricity from offshore wind farm with over 200 turbines.
The project was officially launched in June 2025 through cooperation agreement between Lingang Special Area administrative committee, Shanghai Lingang Special Area Investment Holding Group, and HiCloud Technology. HiCloud also signed operational agreements with partners including Shenergy Group, Shanghai Telecom, and CCCC Third Harbor Engineering completing construction in October 2025.
A representative from HiCloud Technology explained the process:
“Our backplane air conditioners draw in hot air generated from the servers and change the refrigerant in the copper pipes from liquid to gas. The gas rises to the cooling layer of the upper module by its own buoyancy, where it exchanges heat with a heat exchanger through seawater and changes back from gas to liquid.”
“Finally, gravity returns it to the server room of the data warehouse, forming a heat exchange system that does not require power,” he continued.
The underwater AI data center reportedly achieves PUE of 1.15 far below industry average of 1.5. Facility uses seawater as cooling system reducing energy demand for cooling to less than 10% compared to typical 50% or more used by traditional data centers. Designers estimate this reduces overall energy consumption by 22.8% according to project specifications.
The project develops in two phases with first phase set up as demonstration facility capacity of 2.3 megawatts. Second phase scales up to 24 megawatts according to information from June 2025. Locating center offshore also reduces land usage by over 90% compared to traditional facilities.
HiCloud first tested viability of underwater data centers in 2021 with deployment off coast of Hainan Island. Company followed this with first commercial deployment in 2023. HiCloud added further data center module to Hainan cluster in February 2025 containing 400 high-performance servers.
Microsoft ran similar underwater data center experiment called Project Natick from 2013 to 2024. Results showed hardware failure rates were lower underwater than on land. However, Microsoft shelved project citing economics and difficulty of servicing submerged equipment.
