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Posted on 05/12/2026 5:11:34 PM PDT by Twotone
An official press release yesterday confirmed a $140 million investment to power AI data centers at sea. The funding goes to Pathanlassa — a renewable energy and ocean technology company — and was raised in a Series B financing led by avid investor and former PayPal CEO and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, alongside several other investors.
The Portland-based start-up said it would use the funding to complete its pilot manufacturing facility in Oregon for its Ocean-3 series nodes — an autonomous platform that will house and power data centers for AI inference computing at sea, using electricity generated from ocean waves.
“There are three sources of energy on the planet with tens of terawatts of new capacity potential: solar, nuclear, and the open ocean,” said Garth Sheldon-Coulson, Co-Founder and CEO of Panthalassa. “We’ve built a technology platform that operates in the planet’s most energy-dense wave regions, far from shore, and turns that resource into reliable, clean power. We’re now ready to build factories, deploy fleets, and provide a sustainable new source of energy for humanity.”
Panthalassa’s solution is an autonomous, fully integrated system called a node that houses both AI infrastructure and power-generating hardware in a single offshore unit. Each lollipop-shaped node consists of a buoyant spherical head connected to a long, submerged vertical tube and structural frame.
As ocean waves pass, the node bobs up and down, but, crucially, the surrounding water moves only in small orbital paths. This relative motion between the structure and the water column induces oscillations within the tube, effectively driving seawater up and down through the system.
That oscillating flow is channeled into the spherical chamber through a high-pressure jet, where it is converted into usable mechanical energy. The water then passes through internal turbines, generating electricity before recirculating back into the tube to repeat the cycle. The system is designed as a closed hydraulic loop that continuously extracts energy from wave-induced motion.
As the ocean never stops moving, the system generates power around the clock. That power runs the onboard payloads. For truly autonomous operation, the system transmits data back to shore via satellite, eliminating the need for tethering. Another noteworthy benefit of the system is that the surrounding ocean provides free supercooling, solving one of the biggest engineering challenges in land-based data centers.
Each node also incorporates propulsion and station-keeping systems, allowing it to maintain optimal positioning or operate as part of a distributed offshore network, effectively coupling renewable energy generation directly with modular AI compute at sea.
After decades of research and development, and several preceding versions, Panthalassa says it plans to “deploy its Ocean-3 pilot node series in the northern Pacific Ocean, demonstrating AI inference capabilities and refining its manufacturing process in preparation for commercial deployments in 2027.”
AI’s electricity demand is rising much faster than conventional power infrastructure can keep up with. In many regions, grid operators are already struggling to keep up, while communities are increasingly pushing back against new builds over concerns about land use, noise, and energy diversion. In response, companies are scrambling for alternatives, and the solutions are becoming increasingly unconventional. “The future demands more compute than we can imagine,” said Peter Thiel. “Extra-terrestrial solutions are no longer science fiction. Panthalassa has opened the ocean frontier.”
Panthalassa’s wave-powered offshore compute nodes are the latest in a growing line of radical bets on how to power AI sustainably. Last month, we reported that Meta had signed a partnership with an energy start-up to beam solar energy from space to enable continuous, 24/7 power. Other startups are exploring the idea of moving data centers entirely off-planet. These are just a few of the many other initiatives to meet AI’s seemingly impossible electricity demands.
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If you would like more information about what’s happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me. Please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.
hmm....Waterworld II?
There’s something more going on than just data centers.
March 2026 place the count at approximately 5,426–5,427, representing roughly 45% of all operational data centers globally.
What in the world is a “compute node” ?
35 years in i.t. and the bullshit flows like water.
What a stupid idea.
One thing that computers hate is variable voltage or current.
Wave power is going to give you that every hour of every day.
Unless you fitter your power through batteries continuously (hard to do battery voltage naturally varies as they discharge) it just will not work.
Power filters only work if the power is fairly clean to begin with.
This is reported wrong.
Most people do not understand that these are 2 different and separate technologies.
Data Center: hell we know what that is, just a thing you can put anywhere as long as there is power. (the whole water thing is mostly a joke, and if designed properly it can a one time thing to fill it up, or maybe just a few times a year when you have to use it in evap mode)
Power Source: This can be anything, the local grid, nat gas or diesel generator, solar, mini turbine, wind, mini reactor, just a power source.
What makes this unique is only the power source.
here is a video that explains it all
https://youtu.be/Q7Pmgq2JKbI?t=345
I jumped the link to the part where things are explained
the datacenter could be onshore or on a barge, who cares
This is all about clean ocean energy to power it.
Sounds like a FAIL to me, the energy potential of waves just isn’t there, and it’s a really tough environment. How can I short this stock?
Interesting video.
I would love the short-sell whoever builds (or buys) the wave power plants. Salt water and electricity don’t mix. It’s galvanic corrosion, everything on a boat exposed to seawater has to be bronze or chrome or have zinc anodes if there is any current in the water or it corrodes much faster than on land or even in fresh water. Plus when the waves get too big whoops! And, waves are created by wind. You can already use a wind turbine, why get the power from something that is created by another thing (wind) instead of from the wind itself. But logic and environmentalism are incompatible.
Very interesting idea, but I think it needs to be of much larger circumference to capture more of the wave energy.
Here’s a list of 17 wave power companies which went bankrupt already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wave_power_projects
I read about that wave power generators decades ago in Popular Mechanics or Popular Science. While I thought it was an intriguing idea, I always thought it was impractical due to purely mechanical / maintenance problems.
I think the guys who are planning their own small nuke plants are on a wiser track.
Did you look at #9?
No one else would try operating a company in Oregon,
Did you look at #14?
brookwood, you and I are on the same page. See my #10.
BTW Ann, I’ve been watching energy policy for 50+ years at this point. And have some reasonable academic and professional background in the undertaking.
1920-1945: MaineMemory.net - "The Unfulfilled Dream of Tidal Power"
Bfl
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