World’s First Wind Powered Underwater Data Centre Goes Live Off Shanghai, Slashing Energy Use by 23%

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A fully operational underwater data centre drawing power directly from an offshore wind farm has surfaced as a new model for coastal infrastructure, with implications for port energy networks, subsea operations, and maritime supply chains.

The underwater data centre (UDC), positioned 10 metres beneath the surface off the coast of the Lingang Special Area within the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, is now running live computing workloads, making it the first facility of its kind to combine offshore wind generation with submerged server infrastructure.

The project carries an investment of CNY 1.6 billion (approximately USD 228 million) and has a total planned capacity of 24 MW across two phases. The first phase, a 2.3 MW demonstration unit, was completed and verified in late 2025. The full 24 MW buildout was formally launched earlier this year.

Three organisations signed the original cooperation agreement in June 2025: the administrative committee of the Lingang Special Area, Shanghai Lingang Special Area Investment Holding Group, and HiCloud Technology, the project’s primary technology developer.

The UDC modules sit between the first and second phases of Lingang’s offshore wind farm, adjacent to operational wind turbines. Seawater provides natural cooling, eliminating the freshwater consumption that onshore data centres typically require. Electricity flows directly from the turbines, bypassing land based grid transmission.

According to the project’s developers, the design cuts electricity consumption by 22.8 percent compared with equivalent onshore facilities, removes water usage entirely, and reduces land occupation by more than 90 percent. The facility maintains a power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating of approximately 1.15, a figure the developers describe as among industry leading levels.

For the maritime and port sector, the project signals a potentially significant shift in how coastal zones allocate offshore energy. Wind farms originally built to supply onshore grids or port operations could increasingly serve dual purposes, powering subsea digital infrastructure while continuing to feed electricity into shoreside networks. That raises fresh questions about energy allocation, seabed permitting, and interaction with shipping lanes and anchorage areas.

GPU servers installed within the underwater modules are supporting applications that range from big data annotation to the training and development of domestic large language models. The system also enables coordinated allocation of computing resources between the offshore platform and onshore facilities.

China Telecom has already deployed computing clusters on the platform, alongside local service providers such as LinkWise, according to statements from the Lingang Special Area administration.

The Chinese government has framed the project as a demonstration case for green and low carbon development of computing infrastructure and for the local consumption of offshore wind power, language that suggests policy support for scaling the concept beyond a single site.

The convergence of offshore energy and subsea computing is likely to draw attention from port authorities, terminal operators, and offshore service companies evaluating how digital infrastructure can be co-located with existing maritime assets.

Ports and coastal industrial zones that host or adjoin offshore wind installations may face new planning considerations, including cable routing, maintenance vessel access, and the environmental monitoring of submerged hardware. Insurers and classification societies could also find themselves developing new frameworks for assets that straddle the boundary between maritime structures and IT infrastructure.

With global demand for data centre capacity accelerating and coastal land increasingly constrained, the Lingang project offers a working proof of concept that other maritime regions may seek to replicate or adapt.

Whether the model can be commercialised at scale beyond a state supported demonstration remains an open question, but the technical benchmarks now exist for the industry to evaluate.