Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) Takes Novel Approach To Data Centers

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has made big inroads in the cloud hosting sector in recent years, and the tech titan now wants to take its servers underwater — literally.

TechCrunch has more details on the interesting approach to storage:

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.

Specifically, Microsoft notes that most people in the world live within 125 miles of the ocean. Then there’s the development of offshore wind farms, which could provide power directly to the data centers buried underwater.

Finally, and most importantly, there’s the heat issue. Cooling data centers is a large part of the costs associated with running them, and putting them underwater essentially removes the need for outside cooling.

With phase two of the experiment underway, Microsoft is inching closer to making the futuristic dream a reality.

Microsoft Corporation shares rose $0.04 (+0.04%) in premarket trading Monday. Year-to-date, MSFT has gained 19.89%, versus a 4.66% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.

MSFT currently has a StockNews.com POWR Rating of A (Strong Buy), and is ranked #1 of 66 stocks in the Software – Application category.