https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/08/why-microsoft-wants-to-put-data-centers-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean/

Earlier this week, Microsoft announced the second phase of Project Natick, a research experiment that aims to understand the benefits and challenges of deploying large-scale data centers under water. In this second phase, the team sank a tank the size of a shipping container with numerous server racks off the coast of the Orkney islands and plans to keep it there for a few years to see if this is a viable way of deploying data centers in the future.

Computers and water famously don’t mix, as anyone who has ever spilled a cup of water over a laptop, so putting server racks under water sure seems like an odd idea. But as Microsoft Research’s Ben Cutler told me, there are good reasons for why the bottom of the ocean may be a good place for setting up servers.