China’s Guangdong province, a primary generation hub on the southeast coast, plans to move some of its giant knowledge hubs to new underwater sites in a bid to increase energy consumption, according to the plan published on Tuesday.

Data centers have one of the largest commercial consumers of energy; building them underwater will decrease the need for cooling technology, which can account for about one-third of a facility’s total electrical energy consumption.

Major cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai will be encouraged to move “energy-intensive knowledge centers” to underwater sites, in line with the five-year marine economy progression plan.

The provincial government will have similar technological advances, he added.

The plan follows efforts across southern China’s Hainan Island province, which has begun painting the world’s first underwater advertising knowledge center with a view to completing it in five years.

In 2018, Microsoft lowered a truck-sized non-commercial knowledge center to about 35 meters (117 feet) at sea off Britain. The miniature knowledge center recovered last year and Microsoft said the experiment was a success.

Greenpeace has warned that the electricity intake of China’s 5G knowledge centers and base stations is expected to quadruple between 2020 and 2035, making the sector one of the fastest-developing carbon dioxide emission resources.

However, environmentalists have also expressed fear about the effect of emerging water temperatures and acoustic pollutants from underwater knowledge centers on the surrounding marine life.

China’s Ministry of Industry said this year it would urge knowledge centers to make full use of renewable power and inspire them to build their own renewable power plants.

(Reporting by David Stanway; editing via Edwina Gibbs)

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