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  • Cloud computinghas been a buzzword for a few years now, it's the term for when

  • software, data storage, and processing is handled remotely in a server somewhere rather

  • than on the local device you're on.

  • Despite its lofty name though, it doesn't take place up in some mystical cloud, but rather

  • inside a mundane data center somewhere on land.

  • That could one day change though, because software giant Microsoft thinks that the best

  • place for the cloud might actually be underwater.

  • On its face, it sounds like a ridiculous idea. High-end electronics and water go together

  • like cats and water.

  • But Microsoft thought the potential upsides were too good to pass up.

  • Firstly, almost half the world's population lives within 100 kilometers off shore.

  • If data centers are sunk just off the coast, they can be in close proximity to population

  • centers, cutting down the physical distance data has to travel and thus reducing latency.

  • And if these data centers are made up of mass-produced watertight pods that are ready to be deployed

  • whenever demand calls for it, Microsoft estimates they could set one up in just 90 days.

  • By comparison, a land-based data center needs to account for local building codes, taxes,

  • climate, electricity connectivity, network connectivity, and so on, meaning building

  • one could take 18 months to two years.

  • Data centers on land also use a considerable amount of energy keeping all the electronics

  • cool.

  • Older data centers use mechanical cooling, basically heavy-duty air-conditioning, which

  • could use almost as much power as the servers themselves.

  • Newer centers use free-air cooling that relies on the outside air and evaporated water to

  • bring the energy use down, but they're at the mercy of ambient air temperatures and

  • the water supply.

  • An underwater data center can use the nearby seawater for cooling, and if it's deep enough

  • the water will be reliably cool year-round, even in the tropics.

  • Microsoft even envisions these centers powered by 100% renewable energy.

  • By harnessing the motion of waves or the flow of water as the tide moves in and out, the

  • servers could be freed from reliance on a grid that might fail.

  • Tidal energy, in particular, could be the most reliable source of energy, because what's

  • more reliable than the tide?

  • With all these benefits in mind, Microsoft launched Project Natick in 2014.

  • By August 2015, they built a prototype pod with server racks inside and submerged it

  • off the coast of California.

  • The experiment ran for 105 days, and all the while the servers stayed as cool as those

  • in mechanically cooled data centers while using only 3% of the pod's total energy

  • consumption.

  • Satisfied with the first test, Microsoft built a full-sized pod that's as big as a shipping

  • container and submerged it in June of 2018.

  • The location they chose was by the Orkney Islands of north Scotland, which happens to

  • be the home of the European Marine Energy Centre, the world's largest test site

  • for tide and wave energy.

  • Microsoft plans to run the pod on the seafloor for years to test the logistical, environmental,

  • and economic viability of this novel idea.

  • Of course, if they drop it in the sea for years at a time, that means they can't perform

  • maintenance on it if something breaks.

  • Microsoft spins this as a good thing, because if there's no humans down there mucking

  • with the servers, they can't break anything else either.

  • And because there are no humans inside the pod, Microsoft could remove as much moisture

  • as possible and fill it with nitrogen to keep connectors inside from corroding.

  • Now we just wait and see if the pod can stay water-tight, if renewable marine energy can

  • power it, and if the salt-water cooling system adapted from submarines can run for years

  • without barnacles fouling it up.

  • If the experiment goes smoothly, we may soon be browsing the web or playing video games

  • on servers tucked inside mass-produced pods sunk off our shores.

  • Thanks for watching, be sure to subscribe because we'll tell you everything you wanted

  • to know about the internet, like in my other video about what the dang thing actually looks like.

  • The Natick pod was intentionally made the size of a shipping container so it would

  • be easy to transport anywhere in the world.

  • That's all for now, I'll see you next time on Seeker!

Cloud computinghas been a buzzword for a few years now, it's the term for when

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