The tech giant is looking towards an innovative way to move away from terrestrial data centres, which have faced increased criticism over water and energy consumption, which has meant cloud providers are needing to get creative.

The Samsung Heavy Industries group subdivision has confirmed plans to commercialise floating data centres by as early as quarter two in 2028.

The company will even look to secure orders before installation are carried out.

CEO Sung-an Choi said: "Floating data centres represent a major new opportunity for the shipbuilding and offshore industries."A

The move to water would meant he company can reduce cooling requirement by housing the compute at a more stable temperature, while also having the benefit of overcoming shortages of available land.

A dedicated barge would be developed for the servers, as well as on-board power equipment and electrical infrastructure.

Still, initial data centres would mainly be using shore-based electricity, so while they would benefit from being on the water, they would still be making use of grid infrastructure which is already there.

It's claimed that these floating data centres could arrive quicker than traditional ones, as they wouldn't be subject to the same drawn-out permitting process.

There are still some concerns which need to be ironed out, including the potential for corrosion due to saltwater, the impact of water ingress and humidity, and the influence of currents and tides.

As reported by Seoul Economic Daily, Yoo Jae-sun, a researcher at Hana Securities, commented: "Considering that onshore data centre construction costs form a level of 8 billion to 10 billion won per megawatt (MW), and that this could lead to consecutive orders, there is a possibility that the price per vessel and construction profitability could exceed those of existing merchant ships."