Hainan Port’s investment Company, Hainan Xintou, announced that it would launch its commercial undersea data center. The data center will run in 100 airtight pressure vessels on the sea bed close to China’s Changjiang Nuclear Power Plant. Beijing Highlander, a marine specialist, tested the prototype for the center earlier in the year, and it will be building the vessels for the facility. In addition, ISP Beijing Sinnet will operate the facility.
airtight pressure vessel built by Beijing Highlander
The plan is to install racks of data center equipment in the vessels. Operating the data center will happen through a joint power and internet cable. In addition, the seawater that surrounds the data center will be used to cool the facility. Moreover, Hainan Port’s investment company said that the plan is to build these 100 data center vessels over five years at the launch event.
Highlander will work with the Hainan government on the construction, and internet service provider Beijing Sinnet technology will oversee its operation.
Sinnet Press Release on May 24th 2021: (Translated by Google)
On the afternoon of May 21, 2021, the promotion meeting of the world's first commercial submarine data center demonstration project was held in Haikou. Leaders from Hainan Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Changjiang County Government, etc., and heads of enterprises such as Hainan Telecom, Sinnet, Lenovo Group, SenseTime, Taiji Co., Ltd., Hainan Xintou, and Hailanxin attended the meeting and launched the demonstration project in Hainan. The implementation details are discussed and confirmed.
The construction of the Hainan Free Trade Zone will promote the rapid growth of data, and the innovative scheme of the submarine data center will solve the problem of high PUE of traditional data centers caused by the high temperature in Hainan, and greatly support the development and construction of the Hainan Free Trade Zone. The project plans to use green energy for power supply to achieve a truly "carbon neutral" data center. At the beginning of the meeting, the general manager of Hailanyun Xu Tan gave a special report on the overall plan of the submarine data center project, the sea area survey report and the follow-up work plan; the business representatives of the project cooperation unit on how to participate in the submarine data center and serve the smart Hainan The report exchange.
Yang Yuhang, President of Sinnet, said that Sinnet, as a leading domestic data center and cloud computing provider, will work with Hilansense to improve the demand analysis, plan design, and operation and maintenance of the submarine data center, which can not only support Hainan Province itself With the development of intelligence and digital economy, Hainan’s “green data center” must be built into a key infrastructure competitiveness for the national digital center and R&D center.
Ma Yonghua, director of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Hainan Province, said that Hainan has unique advantages in developing subsea data center projects. Data center projects will surely become "rigid demand" and will play a positive role in the construction of Hainan Free Trade Port. This is also the active participation of Hainan state-owned state-owned enterprises in the project. The main considerations. In order to ensure the orderly implementation of the project, the Hainan Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission will jointly promote the preliminary work with the relevant departments to ensure the smooth progress of the project. At the end of the meeting, the Hainan Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, Hainan Xintou and Highlander signed the "Strategic Cooperation Agreement on the Construction of the World's First Commercial Submarine Data Center Project". Sinnet and Highlander signed the "Green Data Center (Undersea IDC) Strategy" The Cooperation Framework Agreement marks the official entry into the implementation stage of the world’s first commercial subsea data center demonstration project.
According to the strategic cooperation agreement, the Hainan Submarine Data Center project has a total planning of 100 data cabins, which will be constructed in three phases during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Hainan Province and Hainan Xintou will fully support the construction of the submarine data center.
Sinnet will establish a joint venture submarine data center operating company with Hylan Cloud, participate in the operation and maintenance of the Hainan demonstration project, be responsible for part of the investment and customer promotion of the demonstration project, and will participate in the overall planning of the future capital operation of the submarine data center.
