Project Natick
A research project to determine the feasibility of subsea datacenters powered by offshore renewable energy.
Phase 2 timeline
Phase 2 planning
The team set out to make the datacenter full scale, deploy it deeper and in harsher conditions, and power it with completely renewable energy.
September 2015
Request for Information
An RFI sought information about the feasibility of deploying a Natick datacenter in the ocean powered by renewable energy.
December 2015
Request for Proposals
A select group of marine organizations was invited to present proposals to realize the Phase 2 vision.
March 2016
Naval Group selected
Naval Group and its subsidiary, Naval Energies, were selected to lead design, fabrication, and deployment of the Phase 2 datacenter.
November 2016
Design complete
The team designed subsea equivalents of networking, electrical and cooling systems, environmental monitoring, and more.
October 2017
Fabrication complete
Fabrication was complete; IT equipment was installed and tested before the vessel was shipped to Stromness, UK.
May 2018
Deployment
Northern Isles was deployed at the European Marine Energy Centre.
June 2018
Operations
Natick Northern Isles was used by more than 18 groups inside Microsoft.
June 2018
Pandemic work
Natick Northern Isles was re-tasked to provide resources for COVID-19 vaccine research through Folding at Home and World Community Grid.
March 2020
Retrieval
After more than two years on the seafloor, Natick Northern Isles was retrieved for analysis.
July 2020
What’s next?
Look for more information here soon.
