Stranded natural gas could power offshore data centers

Houston, Texas, firms form new partnership to put compute at sea

Stranded and undervalued natural gas could be used to power floating data centers.

Houston, Texas-based companies Riverway Group and Offshore Data Center are planning to develop an offshore compute platform they can sell to oil and gas producers looking for additional ways to monetize their resources.

The firms intend to market a platform that is 50 percent lighter than traditional designs and is capable of housing large “topside” loads, including data centers, ammonia or methanol production units, and conventional gas production facilities. The platform will incorporate a patented closed-loop cooling system that utilizes seawater to cool the IT hardware, cutting energy costs.

“A significant amount of offshore gas is never developed, or is simply reinjected, because getting it to market doesn’t pencil out,” said Art J. Schroeder, Jr., CEO of Offshore Data Center. “By putting the data center next to the gas, we eliminate the pipeline to shore and the transmission line, and we cut the cooling bill dramatically. Riverway gives us a way to build these platforms here in the United States.”

So far, the companies have not outlined timelines for developing the platform, how much IT capacity will be available in its floating data centers, and how much they will cost to build.

The project is the latest in a wave of floating data center schemes proposed in recent months, with developers around the world looking to the ocean as a new location to house compute.

DCD took an in-depth look at the emerging compute at sea sector, which encompasses floating and underwater data centers, in the latest edition of the magazine, out now.

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