- A 120 -meter ship could soon house thousands of AI GPU with direct sea water cooling
- The project depends on reused ships to reduce construction costs and environmental damage.
- Mol and kinetics promise flexibility, mobility and abundance of power through powers and renovations on the high seas
The idea of putting an installation with AI on a ship used to sound as a science fiction, and not long ago, there was even a failed attempt to build a floating “nation” that would execute itself using artificial intelligence.
Now, the sending of Mitsui Osk lines heavyweight (mol) and kinetics, the Karpowership Energy Transition Unit, aim to do something much more punished.
Companies are working together to build a mobile floating data center that could house thousands of AI GPU while adding digital infrastructure bottlenecks.
Mol and kinetic scheme plans for a floating AI data center
The two companies recently signed a memorandum of understanding to develop what they describe as “the first integrated floating data center platform of the world.”
The structure will be organized aboard a modernized container, backed by an energy supply that includes energy ships, floating electric power plants developed by Karpowership, as well as other sources such as solar farms, high seas wind and networks on land.
“This project represents an important step towards our vision in kinetics, offering innovative, efficient and sustainable infrastructure solutions that meet today’s energy needs,” said Mehmet Katmer, CEO of Kinetics.
“By combining mobile energy generation with floating data infrastructure, we are addressing the critical bottlenecks of the market while allowing a faster, more flexible and more flexible digital capacity expansion.”
It is projected that the data center will offer between 20 and 73MW capacity, cooled by direct water systems drawn in seas or rivers.
It would be mounted on a 120 -meter long ship, with network plans that include submarine cables and internet exchanges on land.
“This Mou represents an important step forward in the use of Mol Group assets and the extensive experience in the ship’s operations to quickly build the digital infrastructure while minimizing the environmental impact,” said Tomoaki Ichida, executive officer manager of Mol.
“In the future, we will continue to expand a wide range of social infrastructure companies focused on the maritime transport industry.”
A mobile platform, refrigerated by the sea, rich in energy that prevents the limitations of the earth and allows headaches offers an attractive alternative to overloaded terrestrial data centers.
Flexibility is remarkable, but the scale of ambition raises questions, and this justifies skepticism.
Although the idea sounds perfect on paper, its real world execution could face the same problems that have affected similar utopian infrastructure concepts.
The Mou promises operations for 2027, depending on “successful viability studies and ongoing technical developments.”
These viability studies must demonstrate that problems such as the latency of the network, the risks of physical relocation, regulatory uncertainty and long -term maintenance can be approached reliably.
Cost and sustainability arguments depend largely on the reuse of existing ships.
“In addition to reducing construction costs,” says the project, “the use of existing systems is expected to use the initial investment costs.”
By avoiding new constructions, developers believe they can also reduce the environmental cost of raw material extraction.
Practical advantages, such as the speed of deployment, mobility and independence of tense terrestrial networks, are not in doubt.
“Even in areas that experience energy shortage, data centers can start operations immediately,” the developers point out.
But it remains to be seen if this system will be reliable, scalable and economically solid in the long term.
