Yes, Microsoft demonstrated that an underwater data center could be deployed, run for two years and retrieved for inspection. Project Natick’s result supports the practicality of a carefully engineered subsea installation; it does not show that Microsoft has launched underwater Azure data centers or that the approach is proven for broad commercial use.
What Microsoft tested
Project Natick began as Microsoft research into placing data centers underwater, including the possibility of pairing them with offshore renewable energy. Its Phase 2 Northern Isles module went into the water in 2018 at the European Marine Energy Centre off Scotland’s Orkney Islands. It rested 117 feet (about 36 meters) below the surface, operated on the seabed for two years, and was retrieved in 2020 for inspection and analysis, according to Microsoft’s 2020 account.
The trial demonstrated that Microsoft could build, deploy, operate and recover this particular sealed module at a prepared site. Orkney’s island grid used wind and solar power as well as experimental marine-energy technologies. That makes the deployment a feasibility demonstration in a specific setting, not a test of a standardized facility across different seas, climates or grid conditions. Microsoft continues to describe Natick as a research project on its Project Natick overview.
What was inside the Northern Isles module?
Microsoft’s Project Natick facts and figures describe a 12.2-meter-long, 2.8-meter-diameter pressure vessel, roughly the size of a 40-foot ISO shipping container.
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| Specification | Microsoft’s reported figure |
|---|---|
| Server racks | 12 |
| Servers | 864 standard Microsoft data center servers |
| Storage | 27.6 petabytes of disk |
| Acceleration | Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) acceleration |
| Electrical consumption | 240 kW |
| Internal atmosphere | One atmosphere of dry nitrogen |
| Listed electricity source | 100% locally produced renewable electricity from onshore wind and solar, plus offshore tide and wave |
| Factory-to-operation time | Less than 90 days, as a reported project figure—not a guarantee for another site |
| Planned maintenance-free operation | Up to five years, a design target rather than a demonstrated five-year result |
How reliable was Microsoft’s underwater data center?
Microsoft reported that servers in the Northern Isles module had one-eighth the failure rate of servers in its land-based control group. Project lead Ben Cutler described the comparison in Microsoft’s September 14, 2020 account: “Our failure rate in the water is one-eighth of what we see on land.” The result is Microsoft’s reported finding for this project and comparator; the account does not establish that underwater servers will have the same reliability advantage in other deployments.
Microsoft said researchers were still investigating why the failure rates differed. The explanations it discussed included the vessel’s dry-nitrogen atmosphere, reduced exposure to oxygen and humidity, less temperature fluctuation, and fewer occasions for people to handle or replace components inside the sealed module. These were proposed explanations, not a settled causal finding.
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What could make an underwater data center useful?
Cooling without freshwater
Microsoft said the project could be cooled without using freshwater. The design also placed heat exchangers in contact with the surrounding seawater. Those are features of the Natick setup, not proof of a quantified energy or cost saving against a conventional facility: Microsoft’s cited accounts do not provide a comparative lifecycle-cost study or a commercial-scale energy-savings figure.
Renewable power and coastal locations
The Northern Isles module used locally produced renewable electricity, and the project explored the possibility of locating data centers alongside offshore wind generation. Microsoft also discussed potential reductions in some power and reliability infrastructure. These are design possibilities and project observations, not universal benefits; outcomes would depend on a site’s energy supply, grid connection and deployment requirements.
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Reduced routine access, with a maintenance trade-off
A sealed vessel can limit routine human handling, which Microsoft considered as a possible contributor to the observed reliability result. The corresponding operational trade-off is that a component cannot be reached like equipment in an ordinary server room: the module must be engineered to run unattended for a planned period, and repair or inspection can require recovering it from the seabed. Microsoft’s “up to five years” maintenance-free figure is a plan, not a five-year outcome demonstrated by the two-year trial.
What the trial did not establish about cost or marine effects
Microsoft’s current project page says the pressure vessel, heat exchangers, servers and other components will be recycled and that the seabed is being restored to its pre-deployment state. Its 2020 account noted algae, barnacles and sea anemones on parts of the vessel after two years, and said swift currents at the site limited marine growth. Those statements describe the company’s account of one location; the available sources do not provide independent ecological monitoring results or a quantified long-term impact assessment.
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Likewise, the sources do not show that subsea data centers are generally cheaper, greener over their full lifecycle or ready to scale. A reliable commercial comparison would need to account for construction, power and network links, deployment, retrieval, maintenance and end-of-life handling, as well as effects at each site.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Is Microsoft building underwater Azure data centers now?
The cited Microsoft material does not announce a commercial underwater Azure service or a fleet of subsea data centers. In 2020, Microsoft reported discussions with an Azure team about potential tactical and critical data-center applications. Cutler called Natick a “key building block for the company to use if it is appropriate.” That describes a possible future use, not a deployment commitment; the current project overview still presents Natick as research.
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Microsoft also documented a separate 2019 networking experiment between Natick and its research headquarters in Redmond. Traffic traveled through an encrypted tunnel protected with post-quantum cryptography. Microsoft Research explicitly stated that the module was not handling critical business or customer data. The experiment therefore should not be read as evidence that customer workloads ran in the underwater facility.
Quick Recap
What Project Natick proves—and what remains open
- Demonstrated: Microsoft deployed a full-scale sealed module off Orkney, operated it on the seabed for two years and recovered it.
- Reported, not independently validated in the cited accounts: a one-eighth server failure rate compared with Microsoft’s land-based control group.
- Not demonstrated: that the reliability difference has a confirmed cause, that the design is cheaper or greener across its lifecycle, or that its reported performance generalizes to other sites.
- Not announced: a commercial underwater Azure offering.
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