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Project Natick
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Project Natick was an experimental data center that underwent research and development by Microsoft. Microsoft deployed its first undersea data center prototype in August 2015.[1] It subsequently deployed and retrieved a "shipping-container" sized data center off the coast of the Northern Isles in 2018.[2][3] Microsoft subcontracted Naval Group to spearhead the design and manufacture of the vessel.[4]
In 2024, Microsoft stated that Project Natick was no longer active.[5]
History
[edit]In 2013, a Microsoft employee with previous experience in the US Navy suggested that an underwater farm server could cut on cooling costs and increase environmental sustainability.[6] A white paper written by employees began to circulate to promote the idea.
Phase I
[edit]In late 2014, the project was launched with a meeting in Redmond, Washington.[7] The first prototype was named Leona Philpot (named after a character from the Xbox Halo video game series) and was deployed off the coast of California on August 10, 2015.[8] The prototype was placed 30 feet underwater. The trial lasted 105 days and the prototype was successfully lifted out of the water for further testing.[9] Following the initial experiment, Microsoft wanted the next prototype to be larger in size, deployed in harsher conditions, and powered with renewable energy.
Phase II
[edit]Microsoft invited a group of marine organizations to submit proposals to realize the second phase of the project. Naval Group, a French defense contractor, was selected to lead in the design and deployment of the project.[10] The Natick Phase 2 vessel was deployed in June 1, 2018 off the coast of Orkney. The vessel stayed underwater for over two years. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the undersea data center was employed to process workloads for vaccine research via Folding@home.[11][12] In July 2020, the vessel was successfully lifted out of the water and retrieved for analysis.[13]
Termination
[edit]By 2024, Project Natick had been inactive for several years, though it was referenced in media as though it was ongoing.[14] That year, Microsoft confirmed that the project was inactive and that it had no servers underwater.[14]
Impact
[edit]Scottish Renewables awarded Microsoft the Carbon Reduction Award in 2018.[15] Additionally, the project showed that 864 servers could run reliably for two years with cooling provided by the natural sea temperature.[16] A United States Department of Energy report used Project Natick as an example that "marine energy combined with storage and potentially other renewable energy sources could provide the power or partial power for [data centers]."[17]
References
[edit]- ^ "Project Natick: Microsoft Tests Putting Data Centers Under the Sea". NBC News. February 2016. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ "Microsoft finds underwater datacenters are reliable, practical and use energy sustainably". Innovation Stories. 2020-09-14. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ "Microsoft hails success of undersea datacenter experiment—and says it could have implications on dry land, too". Fortune. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ Comment, Peter Judge (15 March 2022). "Building underwater". www.datacenterdynamics.com. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ Fitzmaurice, George (19 July 2024). "Microsoft scrapped its 'Project Natick' underwater data center trial — here's why it was never going to work". ITPro. Retrieved 22 December 2024.
- ^ "Want an Energy-Efficient Data Center? Build It Underwater". IEEE Spectrum. 2017-02-21. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ "Project Natick Phase 2". natick.research.microsoft.com. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ "Underwater home for Microsoft data center is pretty cool, which is the point". The Seattle Times. 2016-02-01. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ Markoff, John (2016-01-31). "Microsoft Plumbs Ocean's Depths to Test Underwater Data Center". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ "Natick Project Phase 2: Microsoft and Naval Group, a successful first assessment for the underwater datacenter". Naval Group. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ "Microsoft's undersea datacenter helps the hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine". Innovation Stories. 2020-06-16. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ "Microsoft employs experimental undersea data center in search for COVID-19 vaccine". TechCrunch. 17 June 2020. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ Meisenzahl, Mary. "Microsoft sank a data center the size of a shipping container 2 years ago in a wild experiment and just brought it up to see how it went". Business Insider. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ a b Moss, Sebastian (17 June 2024). "Microsoft confirms Project Natick underwater data center is no more". Data Center Dynamics. Retrieved 22 December 2024.
- ^ "The Scottish Green Energy Awards 2020". www.scottishrenewables.com. Retrieved 2022-05-01.
- ^ Mytton, David (2021-02-15). "Data centre water consumption". npj Clean Water. 4 (1): 11. Bibcode:2021npjCW...4...11M. doi:10.1038/s41545-021-00101-w. hdl:10044/1/86841. ISSN 2059-7037. S2CID 231921544.
- ^ LiVecchi, A., A. Copping, D. Jenne, A. Gorton, R. Preus, G. Gill, R. Robichaud, R. Green, S. Geerlofs, S. Gore, D. Hume, W. McShane, C. Schmaus, H. Spence. 2019. Powering the Blue Economy; Exploring Opportunities for Marine Renewable Energy in Maritime Markets. U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Washington, D.C.