Microsoft Research is currently working on an experiment called Project Natick, which would require submerging data centers underwater. While electronics and water typically do not mix, Microsoft tested its out-of-the-box concept and deployed a prototype data center underwater at a depth of 30 feet near San Luis Obispo in central California for 105 days. Microsoft wanted to see if, by building data centers underwater, problems typically associated with today’s infrastructure such as power source, cooling, and latency will be solved.
And what the company found out from day one of its experiment was that the submerged sealed vessel can run and operate; in fact, the underwater data center ran 75 days longer than the initial projection and even started handling actual customers’ workload.
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