China launches world’s first wind‑powered underwater AI data center

China has switched on the world’s first commercial underwater data centre off the coast of Shanghai. The facility, located about ten metres beneath the sea in the Lingang Special Area, houses roughly 2,000 servers and is designed for AI model training, 5G infrastructure and big‑data processing. It draws about 95 % of its electricity from an adjacent offshore wind farm via subsea cables, and uses seawater as a passive heat sink, cutting cooling energy demand by roughly 90 % and overall power consumption by 22.8 % compared with land‑based centres.

The project, a £177 million (1.6 billion yuan) joint venture between HiCloud Technology and state‑owned China Communications Construction, demonstrates a strategy to reduce freshwater use and land footprint while meeting rising AI computing power needs. Operators have sealed the hardware in pressure‑resistant steel hulls filled with dry nitrogen to prevent corrosion, allowing autonomous operation for years. Marine scientists note limited localised risks, such as slight sediment disturbance and modest heat release, which are being studied.

The pilot runs at 2.3 MW with plans to scale to 24 MW, illustrating China’s broader push to pair AI workloads with abundant clean energy and mitigate the environmental challenges faced by data centres worldwide.