millions of data, in a data centers around the world are processing our entire online lives 1000s of times a second, but Microsoft may have just rewritten this growing industry. It may be for the better, without reliable on cloud based services expected to be at an all time high in 2021, due to a huge shift online pushed forward by the ongoing pandemic, the need for the most energy and time efficient data centers is crucial moving forward, Microsoft has just reached the end of a two year stage to experiment with sinking our data to the ocean floor, and here's why this is big news. On the ninth of July 2020. The tech giant reeled up what it calls it to Northern the piles are 12.2 meter long steel cylinder from the seabed but giant tube remained 117 feet below the surface for two whole years, gathering data which would later be analyzed by engineers, the company chose to locate this long term experiment 10 miles off the coast of Scotland in the Orkney isles archipelago here, 100% of the energy comes from environmentally green sources, such as wind and solar. The problem with data centers on land is that they are subject to a battering from all directions from the oxygen and humidity in the air landbased facilities faced a serious threat of corrosion, or temperature fluctuations proved to be costly for the corner systems required to keep the service at peak operational temperature, of course the constant foot traffic from cleaning and maintenance teams can also be a cause for concern with bumps, jostles and genuine accidents jeopardizing the equipment's longevity sinking this facility in an airtight waterproof container alleviates some of these concerns consistently cold temperatures for example, help with them or regulation, that means less energy required to keep the computers cool, a plus for the environment as well as our pockets, about one fifth of the data centers energy requirements are destined for keeping a cold temperature, but this is reduced to a minimal amount when surrounded naturally by seawater. The flexibility of project Natick, the codename given to this research exercise helps alleviate concerns that traditional land based data centers have over natural disasters and other attacks. After all, breaking into a conventional data center with its highly trained armed security seems easy compared to reaching it on the sea floor, more than 50% of the world's population lives within 120 miles of the coast.
That's about two hours by car while conventional warehouses are located miles away from cities offered in the middle of nowhere. Having access within a stone's throw means a shorter distance for data to travel, saving energy and providing lightning fast access to consumers, due to the shift in cloud based computing experts believe it would be more beneficial in terms of energy and providing a stable access to customers to have multiple smaller data centers dispersed among populations, rather than drawing from one external warehouse, there will still be the right time and the right place for housing data on land but it will inevitably become less common the project envisions its offshore submerged vessels being powered by partnering wind farms previously thought of as an unreliable source of electricity the uninterrupted winds at sea make it the perfect pairing. However, along with a fiber optic cable linking the tubes to land which are necessary to transfer data and entwined power line could provide a backup source thought up at Microsoft's think week 2014, an annual event where employees share advanced new ideas, the project required a multinational effort to make it happen. The cylinder, for example, was built by friendship builder Nevada, before being loaded with its servers and sent on its way to its Scottish residence, there the European marine Energy Center hooked it up with its underwater cables before it was sunk in June 2018, the unit, whose internal diameter measures 2.8 meters required endless negotiating and communication to sink, resulting in an entire day's work, everyone involved had to wait for calm waters to perform the sea floor surgery, whether there is not typical for the region of the North Sea out inside 864 servers with a combined output of 27.6 petabytes that's 27 point 6 million gigabytes enough storage to retain nearly 5 million movies or the equivalent of over 100,000 MacBooks and so the northern isles spent just over two years under the sea gathering data along its journey. What do we know about the project was a success. Another full day of retrieval pulled up the same white container with a thin covering of our gi barnacles and seeing enemies, a quick wash resulted in surprisingly clean bodywork emerging from underneath, from this one experiment, the various teams of engineers and researchers at Microsoft have deduced as thinking the data center like this is eight times more reliable than housing computers in land based warehouses, although why they're not sure, despite a handful of failed servers which were taken offline, no maintenance was carried out for the duration of the testing stage. They believe that being filled with dry nitrogen may have something to do with his extraordinary success, a substance that is less corrosive than the oxygen that forms part of the air on land, rather than the frequent maintenance required by their landbased counterparts. These ocean dwellers are built to survive half a decade before returning to the surface for a full health check the present, other than knowing the project Natick was largely a success. We know very little else teams are still busy researching and dissecting the information that was gathered.
Many citizens may share a concern that exploiting an environment that has remained virtually untouched for millennia, is a huge no go. But we must remember that even in their 1000s. These data centers would hypothetically take up less than a single percent of the sea floor cloud expert Paul Johnston estimates that nearly 2% of the planet's entire carbon footprint comes from data centers, so any effort to reduce this will surely be a good thing. Yes, say the critics, but what about their effect on the seas temperature and inherent lack in a cooling system such as that of a conventional data center is great, but this is because the oceans naturally cool waters help disseminate this. Nevertheless, the effect this is said to have on the surrounding water is negligible. Of course, even a single degree can cause devastation to the seascape, but the change measured a few meters downstream is said to be a fraction of a degree, barely noticeable with even the most advanced measuring tools. Furthermore, Microsoft believes it has found a benefit to sinking these structures on the sea floor, fish and other aquatic life adore solid structures, especially ones with nooks and crannies. Take a look at shipwrecks which have transformed into ocean havens. That is exactly the effect that these are destined to have the North Sea had already claimed a data center as one of its own with soft sea life shown to be attached upon removal. We can only imagine how fish and other sea life will have interacted with it during its time spent on the sea floor. While we await a full debrief of the project work is already being carried out restoring the sea back to its original state. We are assured that the steel pressure vessel for heat exchangers, the service can in fact, all of the other components are being recycled, either for their materials or for use in another area of the company's operations. Right now, it's clear that Microsoft is rewriting what we know about data centers, and although it may take some time for this change to become widespread the human population will reap its environmental, economic and social benefits for years to come. vital in today's climate, it's promising to see that even one of the world's most dominating companies can choose some compassion towards the environment. Maybe it's the lightning fast access to cloud based services, or it could be the lighter environmental impact, or whatever it is, let us know why you're most excited about this new generation of data center, or maybe why you still have some reservations.
