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AI Chips & Compute

South Korean city tests underwater data centers to ease AI infrastructure strain

Ulsan partners with KIOST to develop subsea data centers with seawater cooling, aiming for commercialization after 2030.

AI News Feed · 2026-08-23 05:14

The project runs through 2030 with a combined budget of KRW 51.1 billion (about $37 million), of which KRW 40 billion ($29 million) comes from the central government and the remainder locally. Ulsan plans to complete the standard model by 2030 and begin developing an underwater data-center complex for commercialization from 2031.

The underwater site will be located in waters roughly 20 meters deep off the Ulsan coastline, where seawater averaging about 13.3°C annually will serve as a core cooling resource. Engineers intend to combine pressure-resistant vessel design with hybrid cooling systems described as ultra-high-efficiency, aiming for an operating efficiency of approximately PUE 1.2 once testing concludes.

Server units and power distribution equipment will follow standardized modular designs meant to simplify future scaling. SK Telecom joined the partnership in January 2026, taking responsibility for GPU-based infrastructure and server operations management. Other research organizations, academics, and industry professionals are involved in areas ranging from vessel engineering to the software layer managing AI workloads underwater.

A separate, longer-term concept discussed by the city involves roughly KRW 500 billion (about $360 million) in investment and capacity for up to 100,000 servers. This larger sum is not tied to the current phase and reflects what a full commercial buildout could eventually cost, according to TechRadar.

South Korea faces mounting pressure to expand computing capacity as AI workloads multiply across chipmakers, cloud providers, and research institutions. Land near population centers remains scarce and expensive, pushing planners toward unconventional sites. Ocean water offers a cooling resource that requires none of the mechanical refrigeration conventional facilities depend on heavily. If the Ulsan demonstration performs as expected, similar underwater sites could spread along other parts of Korea's coastline.