![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dailybusinessgroup.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Visualisation-of-Blue-Core-at-sea.-Image-source-Mocean-Energy.png\")
An energy company believes it has the solution to growing concerns over the visual and environmental impact of data centres. It is planning to take them out to sea.<\/p>\n
Mocean Energy is developing Blue Core, an offshore data centre which draws on wave energy, solar and battery storage to power on-board AI server racks without a grid connection.<\/p>\n
The Edinburgh-based company is now raising \u00a35 million in a pre-Series A round to develop the technology. It has already secured more than half the total.<\/p>\n
The project comes amid a backlash against hyperscale data centres, some larger than the villages where developers want to build them. Concerns include the demands being put on the grid and water supplies.<\/p>\n
Mocean\u2019s modular units can be joined together to create server farms, with the temperature controlled by the North Sea. <\/p>\n
By using a closed-loop system that exchanges heat with the ocean, cooling is expected to consume around 5% of the energy budget, compared with 15% to 35% at onshore data centres.<\/p>\n
The new offshore data centre concept builds on Mocean\u2019s existing Blue Star offshore power system, which has completed 18 months of full-scale sea testing with offshore energy companies and technology developers. Mocean has secured an additional Blue Star pilot, targeting first sales in 2028.<\/p>\n
Blue Core\u2019s first offshore demonstrator and early commercial deployments are expected from 2030, with a 10-year goal of 6 GW capacity.<\/p>\n
Cameron McNatt, managing director, said: \u201cWe\u2019ve spent years proving this technology works in some of the harshest sea conditions anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlue Core takes that same proven system and points it at a much bigger problem. AI data centres are going to need more power than the grid can easily give them, and the ocean can provide that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not trying to build another data centre. We\u2019re trying to remove the barriers around power, land and social licensing that are currently holding the industry back.\u201d<\/p>\n
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