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- Hacker News
- This reminds me of the Pangeos megayacht from a few years back.
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/pangeos-terayacht-turtle/
TL;DR: Pangeos was a concept for a floating free city that trended a few years back, but was never built for obvious reasons, just like how these floating data centres will never be built. Presumably some people were bilked into paying money to the Pangeos scammers, just like there will be those who "invest" in this.
The problem is that it costs a lot more to put a nuclear reactor into a permanently sea-worthy form-factor than it does to build on land and put up with some pesky taxes. There are plenty of places with lax regulations (environmental and otherwise) that will be happy to let you build whatever size data centre you want if you're willing to build the power generation too.
by beloch - Why the website and the images look like AI-generated?by heyjstn
- because they are :))by iancutzul
- Avoiding legal jurisdiction, regulation and tax by being offshore.
Bring on the exploding drone boats.
by cryo32 - You also lose the protections given by legal jurisdictions.
Also regulation and tax by being offshore have much easier ways to be bypassed and which are already being done effectively so by utilizing already existing legal structures and jurisdictions I think.
- Write up an ai generated biz plan, shop it around quick. make the necessary human pyramid, get it on the stock market. it'll be as irresistible as peanut butter & chocolate. (ai+nuclear.. with a dollop of cheaper than spacex AI buildout). Doesn't matter than solar+batteries might be a BIT safer. (even goat Elon has said we don't need nuclear as we already have a free one that is at a safe distance)by formvoltron
- I ran the numbers for this about six months ago and it works out a lot better than all the other alternatives.
The fact you're surrounded by coolant, can use intrinsically safe versions of high pressure reactors and have low latency between multiple markets with one datacenter is a big plus.
That you're not competing with humans for electricity or water is another.
That said you'd want to build a semi submersible platform with the nuclear reactors in the pontoons and the superstructure able to house container based datacenter units. The only place with enough experience to build these is South Korea which isn't a deal breaker per se, but Samsung can pretty much eat your lunch if these get successful.
by noosphr - So I take it you’re a marine engineer or similar?by mjhay
- Sealand[1] is becoming attractive real estate again...by sschueller
- Naa. That's just too rotten. Deep cons need https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condeep
- Genuinely, have these guys done anything other than AI generated ship pictures? The top down ones look like they didn’t even use a good model.
I’d be stunned if anyone takes this seriously
- There are some very stupid VC folks around. I have spoken to some, and watched them shart millions away on the back of a powerpoint and some stage presenceby forgottentea
- With the current capabilities of drone warfare is literally putting ecological bombs near to the shores. Awesome!
- I thought the same... huge security risks (or huge security costs ?).by JodieBenitez
- How do they deal with saltwater corrosion, do the barges go in drydocks after a couple of years? What about weather do they have their own propulsion do they need to be towed to avoid bad weather? Can't you put the same gear in containers next to the shore and avoid the whole weather issue?
- "Gas today, nuclear tomorrow" in the power section, with a LNG tanker docked to it.by fulafel
- I think the word "today" in that phrase is extremely generous.by Hamuko
- Current nuclear-powered ships are run by the world’s premier naval powers and protected by their own stealth or a huge array of armed escort ships.
Have these guys factored in the cost of a task force of protective missile frigates, subs, and destroyers at each site?
by tatersolid - That's a problem for the future, no need to worry investors with these silly questions.by cbg0
- Don't be a killjoy, the bloom of harebrained ideas around AI should be celebrated!by zombot
- of course they did not calculate it! it will come later when they want to calculate real costs, they will release it after investor updateby kingleopold
- Why would a carrier battle group be a prerequisite for this? Capital ships will have escorts anyways, the propulsion system doesn't matter.by preisschild
- Proliferation resistant reactors should probably be used.
Like.... LFTR
Basically, the normal operation of the reactor doesn't allow the production of weapons-useful nuclear isotopes.
You'll probably also need a smaller footprint reactor
Like.... LFTR
And you'll want something that can be turned on, shut off, and has natural anti-meltdown abilities in case hurricanes or other disasters threaten the ractor
Like ... LFTR
by AtlasBarfed - I doubt Russian nuclear ice breakers have naval escort. Until recently they operated within the coverage of on-shore long range SAM systems (but most of these SAM systems were moved elsewhere recently e.g. to protect oil refineries so Northern Sea Route is no longer protected).by citrin_ru
- Nuclear submarines often operate without any escort. Russian nuclear icebreakers and floating SMRs also do not have heavy military escorts.by fuoqi
- Forget security (which worries me less), the legalities of this are notoriously tricky (especially if the ship might ever leave the waters of one nation), and the economics are even worse.
I wouldn’t touch civil maritime nuclear with a barge pole, and if I did, the clear win is decarbonizing big cargo ships.
by _n_b_ - The one thing I enjoy about our AI goldrush driven economy is all the cartoonish cash grabs coming out of the woodwork to try and part investors from their money.
1. 4-5x faster deployment than on land
- Not that this will ever be built but if it were, I assume Newport News or Electric Boat would be fitting the nuclear reactor (unless they cheap out and go with an import). Given they are booked solid until the 2040s somehow this company is even slower than the nuclear industry at building land based plants.
2. 1.5 GW deployed per year
- Starting in which year?
3. 1.1 PUE seawater cooling, modeled.
- Well there you have it, they modeled it, so it's basically already built.
4. 20-40 year infrastructure life
- Remind me how many 20 year old servers are currently running AI workloads? Oh, I guess that just means the ships and the nuclear reactor. I mean I guess that's good, it's not like a building on land would last that long...
Oh but I guess they will just be using LNG to start with, thank goodness that is alot easier to get than nuclear. In fact now is a really good time to start this as I heard there's some companies looking to offload a few LNG tankers somewhere in the gulf for a steal!
by class3shock - I wonder if the business model is to operate on the high seas, where sanctions do not apply….by voakbasda