The world's first wind-powered underwater data center is being built off Shanghai as part of China's deep dive to combat its water and heat problems.

China is placing a large wager on cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and other digital technologies to expand its economy; a significant portion of this wager is quickly constructing data centers to increase processing capacity. However, these enormous clusters of computers consume increasing amounts of electricity, and each one uses hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per day to remove the heat they produce.

This implies that the water demand directly related to human existence, from daily drinking to agriculture, will be more and more competitive with these facilities in China and other countries. According to a study by the nonprofit journalist group SourceMaterial and the Guardian, many businesses have located their data centers in some of the driest areas of the world, such as Arizona, parts of Spain, and the Middle East, because dry air lowers the chances of humidity-induced equipment damage. To allay concerns about water, China is now building a data center in the world's wettest place—the ocean. This June, construction began on a wind-powered underwater data center about six miles off the coast of Shanghai, one of China's AI hotspots.

Shabrina Nadhila, an analyst at the energy-focused think tank Ember who has researched data centers, said China's aggressive approach could influence global standards in sustainable computing and is a bold step toward low-carbon digital infrastructure.