If you were a North Sea fish swimming close to the seafloor near Scotland’s Orkney Islands—some 117 feet deep—between 2018 and 2020, you may have come across a barnacle-encrusted steel pressure vessel containing an underwater datacenter concept brandishing a Microsoft logo. This formed part of the tech giant’s Project Natick initiative, which—despite apparent success—has been shipwrecked, with Microsoft cancelling all future plans for shallow-sea datacenters. This is a real shame, given that the unorthodox venture stems from the ever-present sustainability nightmare that is datacenter cooling. Using power-hungry fans to lower the temperature of steaming servers is far from ideal, but it is the most common method, despite limited efficiency. Immersion cooling products are starting to grow in popularity, which include…