• Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Wednesday, June 13, 2018 8:53 AM

    Steve Jones - SSC Editor - Wednesday, June 13, 2018 8:50 AM

    I suspect there are radiators of some sort to absorb heat inside and radiate to the container. I wonder if they would have pumps at all since those typically need maintenance. Might be passive cooling piping that lets water flow, perhaps using natural movement as water heats. There isn't air inside, so no moisture issues. I would suspect that they hope it remains uncovered and water flows across it, just using convection for heat dispersal.

    And I'm wrong. Reading closer, there is piping for move water through the interior and they are concerned about fouling. Still a chore/job that likely will be needed.

    though, perhaps AI robots can do this.

    Heh, I was just getting ready to point out that in one of the pics in the article (and the MS blog post it links to as well,) you can see the "guts" of the datacenter, including regular air-fans to circulate the air in the pressure vessel.

    More likely, for clearing the intake / outflows, they'd use an ROV rather than an autonomous robot, if only to reduce the chance of an accident and have a better chance to deal with something unexpected (like a not-so-friendly octopus making it's home over the outflow.)  If I recall right, as well, the unit is only ~100-150 feet down which is well within sport diving (to say nothing of professional diving) limits.  In which case they could hire a local diver to go down once a month with a crowbar to clear off the intake and outflow, probably for less than an ROV would run.