HD Hyundai is expanding into floating data centre technology through a new agreement with Schneider Electric to develop offshore digital infrastructure.

HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, the shipbuilding holding company of HD Hyundai, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Schneider Electric to jointly develop infrastructure for floating data centres.

Floating data centres use offshore floating structures to house servers and supporting systems. HD Hyundai said the concept could help address two constraints facing land-based data centre development: limited suitable sites and high cooling costs.

Under the agreement, the companies will review the infrastructure and technical requirements needed to operate data centres at sea. The work will focus on combining data centre power and cooling systems with floating offshore platform technologies.

The partners also plan to share information on emerging floating data centre technologies and identify further joint research and development opportunities.

Schneider Electric will contribute experience in power, cooling and energy management for hyperscale data centres and AI infrastructure. HD Hyundai will bring floating structure design and offshore engineering capabilities.

Kim Hyung-kwan, Chief Executive Officer of HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, said the company is accelerating offshore data centre technology development based on its accumulated design and construction capabilities in shipbuilding and floating structures.

He said the collaboration will help advance the core technologies needed to reliably implement large-scale, high-density computing infrastructure at sea.