Microsoft sinks data center off Scottish archipelago

US tech giant Microsoft has submerged a data center off the Orkney archipelago in northern Scotland in a project to save on the energy used to cool the servers on land, the firm said Wednesday.

The Northern Isles data center consists of a 40-foot (12.2 meter) long white cylinder containing 864 servers — enough to store five million movies — and can lie on the seabed for up to five years.

An undersea cable brings electricity from Orkney’s renewable energy network of wind turbines and tidal power to the center and carries data from the servers to the shore and the internet.

“More than half of the world’s population lives within about 120 miles of the coast,” Microsoft said on its website, describing the data centre as a “milestone” for the company.

“By putting data centers in bodies of water near coastal cities, data would have a short distance to travel to reach coastal communities,” it said.

The sea offers ready and free access to cooling — which is one of the biggest costs for land-based data centers. It is also far quicker to deploy a data center offshore than build on land.

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