The world's first undersea data center with direct connection to offshore wind power is completed.

On October 21, the world's first undersea data center project to achieve "direct connection to offshore wind power" was officially completed in Lingang, Shanghai.

On the sparkling sea surface, huge wind turbine blades are spinning, providing a continuous supply of power to the undersea data center. This once-imaginary picture is quietly becoming a reality in the computing power industry.

On October 21, in Lingang, Shanghai, the world's first undersea data center project to achieve "direct connection to offshore wind power" was officially completed. Compared with traditional onshore data centers, this project has the advantages of being green, low-carbon, and having coordinated computing and power supply. The proportion of green power exceeds 95%. It can save 22.8% of electricity, 100% of water, and over 90% of land. It is an innovative representative of new computing power infrastructure.

It is reported that in the future, undersea data centers will also be combined with far-reaching offshore wind farms to build larger-scale computing power centers. At the project completion and large-scale expansion exchange meeting held yesterday, Hailan Cloud, Shenneng Group, Shanghai Telecom, Shanghai Yidian, CCCC Third Harbor Engineering Co., Ltd., etc. held a signing ceremony on site to jointly launch a strategic cooperation on a 500-megawatt undersea data center with direct connection to offshore wind power. All parties will work together in areas such as energy supply, network support, computing power operation, and project construction to promote the large-scale expansion of the project.

Why are data centers built undersea? As a sophisticated infrastructure composed of computer rooms, servers, and transmission networks, data centers have always faced the contradiction between high computing demands and huge power consumption. According to the "Report on the Comprehensive Energy Consumption and Flexibility Prediction of Data Centers", by 2030, the power consumption load of data centers in China will reach 105 million kilowatts, far exceeding the growth rate of the whole society's power consumption.

Therefore, the energy consumption advantage of undersea data centers is apparent. According to Su Yang, the general manager of Hailan Cloud, undersea data centers use seawater for natural cooling, thereby reducing consumption and hardly consuming fresh water. The liquid cooling technology increases the density of servers and at the same time brings an improvement in computing power. In terms of cost, the energy consumption for cooling can be reduced from 40% - 50% to below 10%, and the entire system reduces energy consumption by 30% - 40% compared with onshore data centers.

In the future, "direct connection to offshore wind power" will become a key expectation for the large-scale construction of undersea data centers. From a policy perspective, offshore wind power needs to meet the trend of far-reaching offshore industries. At the beginning of this year, the Tianfeng Communications team said that currently, six provinces in China have demarcated far-reaching offshore demonstration projects, and it is expected that subsequent promotion will be carried out in an orderly manner. In the industrial aspect, on June 17 this year, the project of an offshore wind power integrated undersea data center in Lingshui, Hainan, officially started construction.

From a more macro perspective, entering the deep-sea economy is an inevitable path for the development of computing power. CICC pointed out that currently, the new paradigm represented by "onshore data production + undersea computing processing" is driving a leapfrog breakthrough in the new marine productive forces. Against this background, the institution put forward two increments:

Firstly, since 2025, the construction of offshore wind projects in various provinces has accelerated. The Liangfeng project in Jiangsu has entered the intensive delivery period. The subsequent successive start of more domestic offshore wind projects is expected to promote the confirmation and collection of orders, providing support for profit realization. The trend of far-reaching offshore development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period is also expected to contribute to the incremental market.

On the other hand, according to TeleGeography data, as of the beginning of 2025, the number of global undersea cables reached 600. According to the announced plans, 76 more will be put into production from 2024 to 2026. Undersea cables are the main artery of global information and communication. The growth of AI computing power demand and the rapid increase in transoceanic traffic are expected to drive the demand for them.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Sci-Tech Innovation Board Daily", author: Zhang Zhen. Republished by 36Kr with authorization.