First, Elon Musk wanted datacenters in space. Now, reports suggest the Trump administration is eyeing a more earthly frontier: the Great Lakes and oceans. Two underwater datacenters are already humming off the coast of China, and the administration is reportedly considering four sealed-pod datacenters off the shores of Maine and Alaska. At a campaign rally in Ohio last month, Donald Trump summed up the enthusiasm: “There’s so much money to be made for Ohio … they’ll go to China … we want them.” Because nothing says “innovation” like a bidding war with China over who can sink more servers.
Underwater datacenters are catnip for tech companies because they largely eliminate community opposition - no NIMBY neighbors, no zoning hearings - and could significantly cut utility costs, which currently have communities across the country hot under the collar. A Microsoft project off the coast of northern Scotland in 2018 found that after two years, server failures dropped by 87% compared with on-land equivalents. Microsoft executives called it an unmitigated success, which is corporate-speak for “we’re totally doing this again, just not yet.”
That makes the cool, salt-free waters of the Great Lakes - home to 30 million people in cities like Chicago, Toronto, and Detroit - potentially attractive to datacenter companies. The EPA, for its part, is bullish: “The EPA supports development of data center infrastructure that is essential to remaining the world leader in Super Intelligence while using its statutory authorities to protect water quality,” a spokesperson said. Because nothing says “protect water quality” like submerging heat-generating server pods in it.
But the environmental consequences of any such project in the freshwater Great Lakes, which tens of millions depend on for drinking water daily, could be significant. Local activists are already sounding the alarm - even though no underwater datacenter projects are currently proposed for the region. Better prepared than surprised, they say, given the high stakes of an ecologically sensitive ecosystem.
“We are concerned because if you think about what a datacenter does, it throws off a lot of heat. Lake Erie already has an issue with harmful algal blooms, and they develop because of heat, not only because of fertilizers and agricultural runoff,” said John Lipaj of the Lake Erie Foundation, a non-profit based in Ohio. The floor of Lake Erie on the US side falls under Ohio’s jurisdiction, where Republicans hold a supermajority. In the past, the state government proposed a law making it easier for datacenter companies to discharge wastewater into public waterways. That measure was denied by the state’s EPA last July following public outcry. Of the eight US Great Lakes states, only New York currently has a temporary state-wide moratorium on datacenter construction, ending in mid-2027.
“We’re also concerned about the possibility of contamination and leaks. These have not been around a long time,” Lipaj said. “We are concerned about the types of fluid contained in a datacenter, the batteries and electrical equipment. These are all things that could lead to a catastrophic failure that we don’t want happening in the Great Lakes.”
Lake Erie is home or close to major cities like Cleveland, Detroit, and Buffalo, and is already by far the warmest of the five Great Lakes in summer. It also ranks as one of the most polluted large lakes in the country, largely due to agricultural runoff in its western basin. A number of fish species are under threat due to the lake’s warming trend. “Warm water can impact aquatic life and ecosystems in a number of ways. One immediate effect is what is known as a thermal shock,” said Helena Volzer of the Alliance for the Great Lakes, an environmental group based in Chicago. “Aquatic organisms are highly sensitive to temperature changes, and even a small, rapid increase of just 2-5F can be dramatic for the aquatic ecosystem. When a facility releases warm water, it can alter metabolism and increase oxygen demand, reduce dissolved oxygen availability, disrupt food webs [and] force fish to move away from preferred habitats.”
On 3 November, residents of Conneaut, a Lake Erie community of about 12,000 people an hour’s drive north-east of Cleveland, voted in favor of a charter amendment to prohibit the construction of large datacenters in its area. But the idea of offshore underwater datacenters is not a popular one there. “Being one of the largest freshwater sources in the world, I would be very much for protecting that resource,” said Mariana Branch, a Conneaut council member who lives a short distance from the Lake Erie shoreline. Branch said she hadn’t previously been aware of the idea of datacenters operating underwater. “Technology is moving so quickly, it’s difficult for cities to keep up with,” she said.
Still, some suggest following Microsoft’s lead in Scotland may have merit, considering public opposition to on-land equivalents - and unlike the open ocean, there are no large fauna in the Great Lakes ecosystems. “They require a lot of energy for cooling … one of the biggest advantages of these underwater datacenters is the low cooling cost [associated]. They don’t have to spend a lot to cool the servers,” said Nir Kshetri, a professor of emerging technologies at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. “Datacenters have been a big issue for communities and in the recent elections. Also, datacenters don’t have to worry about any latency problems because they can be located close to large population centers where they are needed. A lake is a great place to do a datacenter. Cold water is even better.”
However, the Great Lakes are not without significant challenges. Last winter saw one of the most extensive freeze-ups in decades, with almost all of Lake Erie and up to half of the four other lakes freezing over up to several feet deep. Experts say it isn’t clear to what extent ice cover could affect underwater projects. What’s more, a Microsoft spokesperson said: “We have no plans to deploy an underwater datacenter in any location at this time,” and “Our focus today is on building and operating datacenters responsibly on land.” A spokesperson for Ohio’s EPA said it had not yet received any applications to permit an underwater datacenter in its part of Lake Erie.
For its part, the Lake Erie Foundation has contacted state representatives and senators in New York, Ohio, and Michigan. “Whether or not they happen, [we’re saying] let’s propose to state legislatures in Great Lakes states that they consider that this may be coming down the line and let’s get some regulations in place before the datacenter developers make their proposals and then state legislators are scrambling. That’s what we’re trying to avoid. We’re exercising an abundance of caution,” Lipaj said. “The Great Lakes states should take some leadership in this, get the regulations written so that nothing is forced on them.” Because nothing says “abundance of caution” like preemptively regulating a technology that may or may not ever show up in your backyard - or, in this case, your lakebed.