China has put an offshore wind-powered underwater data center into operation off the coast of the Lingang Special Area in the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone.
The project, described as the world’s first of its kind, was officially launched in June 2025 through a cooperation agreement between the Lingang Special Area administrative committee, Shanghai Lingang Special Area Investment Holding Group and HiCloud Technology.
The development is planned in two phases. The first phase is a 2.3 MW demonstration facility, while the second phase lifts total capacity to 24 MW.
In October 2025, Chinese authorities said construction of the wind-powered underwater data center had been completed. The project was presented as a demonstration for low-carbon computing infrastructure and local use of offshore wind power.
In February 2026, the Lingang Special Area said the CNY 1.6 billion, or about $228 million, facility had been launched with total capacity of 24 MW.
The data center sits 10 m below the sea surface between the first and second phases of Lingang’s offshore wind farm. Its underwater modules are placed near offshore wind turbines, using power supplied directly by the wind farm and seawater for natural cooling.
Project developers said the system cuts electricity consumption by 22.8%, avoids water use and reduces land use by more than 90%. The facility maintains a power usage effectiveness level of around 1.15.
GPU servers inside the underwater modules support big data annotation and domestic large language model development. The setup also allows computing resources to be coordinated between offshore and onshore facilities.
The Lingang Special Area said computing clusters from companies including China Telecom had already been deployed, together with local computing service providers such as LinkWise.
