Microsoft is currently testing the viability of underwater data centers for more effective server operations after a long research. It is believed that underwater data centers are the future of data centers, since they predict that data center operations will be operated under the sea in the future. Why would this be the case? That’s because Microsoft is trying to cut the cost of the most expensive data center maintenance procedure, which is the air-conditioning system. The underwater data centers that are currently being tested by the company should be able to cut the air-conditioning bills that have been costing a lot of money for the company.
Data centers are operated day and night full-time, and when the servers are in operations, they will produce a lot of heat. The servers will crash when they reach a certain high temperature, so it is important for any data center company to protect their servers from getting overheated during their operations. Thus, the server room needs to be air-conditioned to keep the normal temperature for the servers and prevent overheating problem, thus avoid server crash. Unfortunately, the air-conditioning system is one of the most expensive expenses that any data center company needs to spend regularly, including Microsoft.
Thus, by putting the data centers under the sea, Microsoft doesn’t need to spend any costly spending on air-conditioning system, since the temperature under the water is already cold, and will keep the servers to function properly. Though Microsoft is still testing this underwater data center technology, they might implement it immediately for all of their servers once it is clear that the test ends up to be a success.