China has launched the world’s first commercial underwater data center powered by offshore wind near Shanghai’s Lingang area. This 24-megawatt facility is now fully operational with nearly 2,000 servers for AI tasks, big data, 5G networks, self-driving cars, and smart robots. The sealed units sit about 10 meters underwater and 10 kilometers offshore next to a large wind farm. More than 95% of the power comes directly from the wind turbines via special cables that reduce power loss, while seawater cools the servers naturally through heat exchangers. This eliminates the need for large cooling systems or fresh water, giving it an energy efficiency rating of about 1.15 compared to 1.5 to 2.0 for typical land data centers. The project progressed rapidly: the deal was signed in June 2025, construction ended by October 2025, tests ran in February 2026, and full service started in mid-May 2026, at a total cost of about 1.6 billion yuan. This solves two major data center problems : high electricity use from AI and heavy water consumption for cooling by combining clean wind power with the sea’s natural cooling.