Seatrium Advances 30MW Floating Data Center Pilot as Offshore Computing Gains Momentum

Singapore-based offshore drilling specialist Seatrium is pushing ahead with plans to deploy a 30MW floating data center pilot, as the data center industry increasingly turns to sea-based solutions to bypass constraints on land availability and energy supply. The company’s design has received approval-in-principle (AIP) from Bureau Veritas, the global classification society that certifies ship safety and offshore structures, marking a key milestone for the project.

Seatrium’s floating data center will be built using six independent 5MW modules it calls “Data-In-A-Box,” each configured inside large shipping-container-like units. These modules will be mounted on a jetty-moored, non-propelled barge, though the exact deployment location has not been disclosed. Each module integrates IT equipment, cooling systems, power distribution, and supporting infrastructure in a compact, modular design. The company says the concept is designed to provide scalable, relocatable, and energy-efficient computing capacity for the rapidly growing AI, cloud, and digital economy, relying on natural seawater cooling and embedded power generation.

"Floating data centers are a natural extension of Seatrium’s decades of expertise in delivering complex offshore and marine assets," said Aziz Merchant, EVP for technology and new product development at Seatrium. "Bureau Veritas' AIP provides an important validation of the concept and strengthens our confidence in progressing the development of this innovative, next-generation, offshore platform."

The offshore data center trend is gaining traction beyond Seatrium. In the United States, Y Combinator-backed startup Atomarine is proposing floating data centers powered by nuclear ships, with single nuclear vessels providing energy to movable platforms via cable connections. Atomarine intends to use seawater for cooling and has modeled a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.1, though it has not yet identified a specific nuclear reactor design and is initially planning to power its first facility with natural gas, targeting a 2028 deployment. Meanwhile, Scottish renewable energy firm Mocean has unveiled its Blue Core platform, which generates between 500kW and 1MW from solar panels and wave energy, paired with battery storage and satellite connectivity. Mocean aims for first commercial deployments by 2030 and is currently raising funds to develop the units for AI inference workloads.

The emergence of multiple floating data center concepts from different players underscores a broader industry shift: developers are seeking to bypass the traditional constraints of land, power, and social licensing by moving computing to the ocean. Seatrium’s pilot, validated by a major classification society, could serve as a blueprint for future offshore digital infrastructure, offering a model that combines modular construction, natural cooling, and flexible siting to support the demanding workloads of AI and cloud computing.