Subsea Cloud, a US-based startup specializing in deploying offshore data center pods, is expanding its presence in Europe. with a production facility in the UK and a research and development (R&D) hub in Norway. To create visibility, Subsea Cloud plans a walkthrough event at both facilities later this year for clients, environmental advocacy groups, and partners, and is open to partnerships with gas, oil, and renewables asset owners and over 100 subsea cables in the UK and Nordic regions.

The UK is a vital link to mainland Europe, providing a substantial market for marine infrastructure partners and offering a regulatory and administrative environment that supports predictability and outcome-driven business. The R&D hub in Norway will foster innovation independently from the rest of Subsea Cloud’s operations and leverage the country’s expertise in subsea technologies and well-established regulatory framework. 

The concept of underwater data centers has gained interest from other players, including Microsoft, which conducted experiments with underwater data centers in the past. Subsea Cloud’s expansion into Europe demonstrates the continued exploration of offshore data center solutions and their potential to provide energy-efficient and scalable infrastructure.

By placing data centers subsea, Subsea reduces latency by up to 98% and power consumption and carbon emissions by 40%. Subsea’s innovative design is also highly scalable, and takes about 12 weeks to manufacture and deploy anywhere in the world, solving problems of data residency, bottlenecks, underdeveloped infrastructure, and latency. For countries in Africa, where land and power costs make data center increasingly expensive, offshore data center pods can  provide colocation facilities within ubiquitous lagoons and provide cheaper and faster alternatives for companies that want a rapid development cycle.