In short: China has sunk the primary modules of what it says is the world’s first underwater business information heart. These are the primary of greater than 100 cylindrical modules that shall be lowered round 115 ft onto the underside of the ocean, a journey that takes three hours to finish. The construction will in the end supply the efficiency of round 60,000 computer systems working in unison.
The Hainan Undersea Information Heart Demonstration Improvement Venture includes greater than 100 items, which is able to span virtually 68,000 sq. meters, being sunk off the Hainan island. Every module is designed with a lifespan of 25 years and weighs 1,300 tons.
No particulars in regards to the {hardware} have been launched, although CCTV says every information storage unit can course of greater than 4 million high-definition photographs in 30 seconds.
Inserting information facilities underwater is an costly and tough course of, but it surely comes with loads of environmental benefits. Along with not taking on 68,000 sq. meters of land, the chilly seawater will save 122 million kilowatt-hours of electrical energy and 105,000 tons of freshwater yearly. The placement additionally supplies a dust-free, oxygen-free setting that may shield electronics and assist cut back faults.
As reported by World China Day by day, Pu Ding, the final supervisor of the UDC Hainan pilot improvement venture, stated that the finished information heart can be between 40% and 60% extra energy environment friendly than these constructed on land.
The middle makes use of sea cables to attach the modules to a shore station, the place subsystems resembling energy distribution and networking tools are situated. It is from right here that workers can watch the modules and guarantee all the pieces is working okay utilizing an underwater monitoring system.
Introduced within the first quarter of 2021, the Hainan venture has an estimated completion date of Q2 2025. Not surprisingly, its complete price is a excessive one: $879 million.
This is not the primary time a knowledge heart has been positioned underwater. Microsoft did the identical factor with Project Natick, which was launched in 2014 and first trialled a yr later off the coast of California. The corporate additionally submerged a knowledge heart off the coast of Scotland in 2018, ending that experiment two years later. It discovered the underwater information heart to be eight instances extra dependable than a reproduction setup deployed on land.
