MSFT
Not your average data center
Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund backed Oregon startup Panthalassa in a $140 million round to build offshore AI data centers — basically giant steel orbs that float on the ocean and run workloads above the waves. If that sounds like the plot of a prestige sci-fi show, welcome to the AI boom in 2026.
Why this suddenly matters
The pitch isn’t just quirky engineering for the sake of being quirky. AI is running into the kind of physical bottlenecks Wall Street doesn’t like to think about until they’re staring at a power bill:
- hyperscale data centers can burn as much electricity as a small city
- cooling them gulps down water like it’s happy hour
- grid gear like transformers can take years to source
- local opposition is slowing, delaying, or killing some land-based projects
So when land starts looking crowded, expensive, and politically annoying, the ocean starts to look weirdly practical.
Microsoft, but make it offshore
Microsoft gets a mention here because it previously toyed with underwater computing in Project Natick. But Panthalassa’s bet is bigger than a nostalgia trip for tech nerds. Venture capital is starting to treat offshore compute like a real infrastructure category, not just a moonshot with a cool render.
The investor takeaway
If AI keeps scaling the way everyone wants it to, the winners may not just be the companies building the smartest models. They may also be the ones figuring out:
- where the power comes from
- how to cool the chips
- how to get around grid bottlenecks
Big picture: the next leg of the AI trade may be less about better prompts and more about who can keep the lights on.