Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces

[Still Waters]

Two years ago, Microsoft sank a data centre off the coast of Orkney in a wild experiment.

That data centre has now been retrieved from the ocean floor, and Microsoft researchers are assessing how it has performed, and what they can learn from it about energy efficiency.

Their first conclusion is that the cylinder packed with servers had a lower failure rate than a conventional data centre.

When the container was hauled off the seabed around half a mile offshore after being placed there in May 2018, just eight out of the 855 servers on board had failed.

That compares very well with a conventional data centre.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54146718