Microsoft retrieves underwater data centre after 2 years

Seattle: Microsoft sank a shipping container-sized data centre 117 feet deep in the seafloor off Scotlands Orkney Islands in 2018 as part of its Project Natick. The tech giant has now retrieved it coated in algae, barnacles and sea anemones, confirming viability of seafloor data storage in the near future.

The data centre was hauled up from the seafloor and prior to transportation off the Orkney Islands, the Green Marine team power-washed the water-tight steel tube that encased the Northern Isles’ 864 servers and related cooling system infrastructure.