Exascale Labs and EnergyBank Partner for Floating Wind Data Center Pilot in Norway

AI data center developer Exascale Labs has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with energy storage firm EnergyBank to explore the development of AI data centers co-located with floating offshore wind and long-duration battery storage. The initial pilot will be tied to Zephyros-One, the world's first floating offshore wind turbine, located off the coast of Norway.

Zephyros-One, formally known as Hywind Demo, began operations in 2009 and carries a capacity of approximately 2.3MW. Developed originally by Equinor, the turbine was acquired by Zephyros in 2019. The planned pilot project is expected to deliver 800kW of capacity and operate entirely independent of the grid, pairing an Exascale modular data center—comprising GPU server racks, power distribution, UPS battery backup, switchboards, and management systems—with EnergyBank’s energy storage and floating wind integration technology.

“AI infrastructure growth is not constrained by the lack of availability of advanced chips. Rather, it is due to the inability to secure and deliver power at the required scale and within commercially viable timelines,” said Hoansoo Lee, CEO of Exascale. “Our modular platform is purpose-built to operate off-grid, which means floating offshore wind farms by EnergyBank’s technology can deliver compute-ready power without waiting years for a grid connection.”

The companies aim to use the pilot as a foundation for a repeatable deployment model, targeting compute capacity of up to 10MW per turbine in future phases. EnergyBank said it expects to fund the initial pilot through a combination of private investment and potential public funding opportunities.

“As AI workloads grow denser, reliable power access has become the binding constraint on new data center capacity. By taking floating wind off-grid and integrating generation, storage and modular data centers into a single system, we can turn variable offshore power into firm, high-value compute without waiting years for a grid connection. Wind developers gain a direct route to market, compute operators gain access to new power capacity, and the overall project can capture substantially more value from the same energy asset,” said Tim Hawkey, CEO of EnergyBank.

Following the MoU signing, the partners intend to conduct joint technical feasibility work, define a reference architecture for the pilot, and create a roadmap for scaling beyond the pilot phase. The initiative follows a broader industry trend toward pairing offshore wind with data center infrastructure; in March, US floating wind firm Aikido unveiled a floating offshore wind platform integrated with a modular data center, designed to host a turbine of 15-18MW supporting 10-12MW of IT load.