nautilus data technologies is hoping to move forward with its plans for an innovative waterborne, floating data center, featuring a patent-pending cooling technology, by the end of the year, according to a recent report by data center frontier.

nautilus is planning a waterborne data center to enahnce cooling.
(wikimedia commons)

at the moment, the data center is still at the concept stage, although the company has a 230-foot-long barge at california’s mare island (a former u.s. navy shipyard) where the six megawatt data center. locating a data center on water is a concept being explored by a number of companies, including microsoft, which was featured on coolingzone for attempting an underwater data center.

the data center frontier article noted, “the nautilus team says microsoft’s project natick validated its core thesis of tapping a body of water for data center cooling. by using a rear door cooling unit, the company says it can support unusual density, allowing customers to get more data center per square foot of real estate.”

according to the company, its design for a floating data center will be 80 percent more efficient, produce 30 percent lower operating costs, and allow five times higher power density per rack. by locating the data center on water, thermal management will require no water consumption and reduce air emissions by 30 percent.

the technology that nautilus is attempting to patent would recirculate naturally cool water from the body of water that the data center is located on. nautilus insists there will be no water treatment chemicals, refrigerants, cooling towers, or computer room air handlers in use that could produce harmful environmental effects.

the nautilus site added that the system employs a negative pressure leak prevention system and a positive pressure data hall to further limit possible environmental effects.

“by eliminating chillers and cooling towers,” the data center frontier article explained, “nautilus can reduce its capital expenditures, which translates customer savings of up to 30 percent versus a traditional data center, nautlius says. in testing, the system operated with a power usage effectiveness (pue) of about 1.15.”

according to the article, the cooling loops work with heat exchangers produced by sondex holdings and nautilus has collaborated with a company to produce “skid-mounted cooling units in 500kw, one megawatt, and two megawatt capacities.” nautilus is also using copper plating and titanium pipes in the water intake system to avoid negative effects from salt water.

the article added, “the water intake is located at one end of the boat, with the discharge at the other end to avoid thermal mixing. state regulations require that the discharge temperature is less than four degrees warmer than the intake, and [director of mission critical operations byron] taylor said nautilus has met that standard with room to spare.”

to learn more about nautilus data technologies, watch this interview below with founder arnold magcale: