Move over bit barns, here come Japan's floating bit barges

Japanese shipping biz Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) is planning to fit out a ship as a floating datacenter that can draw energy from the shore or from an accompanying powership.

The company is one of the largest shipping concerns in the world, so it makes sense to use a ship's hull if you want to create a floating bit barn (or should that be bit barge?)

MOL says it intends to build a facility with a capacity of 20 to 73 MW, with direct water cooling for the infrastructure using seawater or river water, depending on where the vessel is moored. It is planned to be operational by 2027, and the company hints that more may follow.

The first unit will use an unidentified 120-meter 9,731-ton vessel for the conversion, and MOL expects to complete the design work this year, plus sign agreements with port authorities and an operator for the facility. The actual conversion work is scheduled for 2026.

There are plans to connect to internet exchanges via land and submarine cables, while a rendered image (above) of what the bit barge may look like shows it also equipped with satellite dishes.

The chief advantages of a floating data facility, according to MOL, is that it can be moved to different locations in response to changes in demand, and depending on conditions, and operated as a datacenter while navigating in the open ocean.

The conglomerate also says that conversion of ships to bit barges only takes about a year, less time than the construction of a conventional land-based datacenter, with no need to secure large amounts of land in metropolitan areas or pay land acquisition costs – although there will presumably be mooring charges.

Currently, the project is proceeding under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with Kinetics, a division of Turkish firm Karpowership, which operates powerships. These are vessels with fully integrated electricity power plants driven by gas or low-sulphur liquid fuels.

The pair reckon the first bit barge could draw its electrical energy from a powership moored alongside, which would free it from the need to be sited where there is a grid connection capable of supplying enough juice for a datacenter, although such an option is also under consideration.

MOL points out that in places such as the US, power companies have been unable to keep up with demand, resulting in wait times of five years or more before some facilities can be connected up to the grid and their backers can start operations.

"Even in areas experiencing power shortages, offshore datacenters can begin operations immediately," it said.

In a statement, Tomoaki Ichida, managing executive officer, said the alliance with Kinetics is a step forward in using MOL Group's assets and in ship operations to build digital infrastructure.

Kinetics chief executive Mehmet Katmer also welcomed the move.

"By pairing mobile power generation with floating data infrastructure, we are addressing critical market bottlenecks while enabling faster, cleaner and more flexible digital capacity expansion," he said.

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Water-borne datacenters seem to be popular in Japan right now, as a separate project was floated earlier this year by a consortium headed by NYK Line, another shipping company. The facility is to be composed from shipping containers assembled on a floating platform moored in Yokohama City harbor.

There is already a floating bit barge located at Stockton in California, operated by Nautilus Data Technologies, while internet giant Google briefly flirted with the concept about a dozen years ago. And let's not forget Microsoft's experiments with underwater datacenters, which a company called Subsea cloud is still offering. ®