Nautilus: First floating data centre completed

 Nautilus Data Technologies is a California based company specializing in the production of floating data centres. The company prides itself on creating the world’s most innovative water cooled data centres. Nautilus is bringing groundbreaking technology to the worlds of data centres and is aiding the digital transformation of the entire industry.

It was recently announced that the company has inked a massive $100 million capital partnership with Onion Energy. The deal has commissioned a 6MW colocation data centre in Stockton. Nautilus’ Chief Executive Officer James L. Connaughton gave his insights on the groundbreaking deal: “Orion Energy is providing Nautilus with flexible capital to complete the commissioning of our Stockton I data centre, strategically located in Northern California at the Port of Stockton,” “This capital will allow Nautilus to showcase and then rapidly expand our transformative approach to meeting the urgent business and community demand for higher performing and more sustainable data centre solutions.” 

Nautilus’ innovative floating data centre utilises its own water cooling technology system and utilises 125 tons of steel and pumps through around 4,500 gallons of water each minute to cool the data centre down.

Lind Marine, the construction company in charge of maintaining and improving the vessel for the data centre, has installed over 3,800ft of fused high density polyethylene to prevent harmful chemicals spilling into and toxifying the water. 

The innovative method of cooling allows up to five times more power density per rack and has a smaller footprint than Nautilus; competitors. Unlike anything that has been seen in modern data centres. 

The main reason the innovative data centre has been built on water is due to the company wanting to utilise a natural water source to reduce the cost of cooling servers. Ultimately reducing overheads and increasing profit for the data centre giant. 

What is a data centre?

In short, a data centre is a building, or indeed a dedicated space within a building or a group of buildings which is used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. Data centres come in all sizes and are adapted for all uses. Data centres tend to cost a lot to maintain hence Nautilus' innovative idea to build them using water is going to transform the industry for the greater good.