Technology
AI data centers may soon ride ocean waves
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Artificial intelligence (AI) already shows up in your phone, your searches and plenty of apps you use every day. Now, some Silicon Valley investors are betting the machines behind those AI answers could one day run at sea.
A company called Panthalassa has raised $140 million in new funding to develop and deploy autonomous, floating AI computing nodes powered by ocean waves. The Series B round brings Panthalassa’s total funding to $210 million, a sign that investors are taking this ocean-based AI idea seriously. The round was led by Peter Thiel, the Palantir co-founder, and the company says the money will help complete a pilot manufacturing facility near Portland, Oregon. Panthalassa also plans to deploy its Ocean-3 pilot node series in the northern Pacific Ocean later in 2026.
Instead of building another giant AI data center on land, Panthalassa wants to place computing power out at sea. Ocean waves would generate electricity. Seawater would help with cooling. Onboard computing systems would process AI prompts and send the results back to land through low-Earth-orbit satellites.
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LOWERING YOUR ELECTRIC BILL COULD BE FLOATING IN THE OCEAN
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Panthalassa’s Ocean-2 prototype rides in open water during testing, giving a real-world look at the kind of floating wave-energy system behind the company’s ocean AI plan. (Panthalassa)
How AI data centers at sea could work
Panthalassa’s floating nodes are designed to capture wave motion and turn it into electricity. The company says it has spent a decade developing the technology behind its power generation, onboard computing and autonomous ocean operations. Its earlier Ocean-1, Ocean-2 and Wavehopper prototypes were tested in 2021 and 2024. Think of each node like a floating power station with AI hardware inside. Waves move the system. That motion helps drive a generator. The power then feeds the onboard chips.
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The company’s plan is to use those chips for AI inference. That is the part of AI where a model responds to your prompt after it has already been trained. In simple terms, it is what happens when you ask a chatbot a question and get an answer back. That makes the ocean plan a little easier to understand. Training massive AI models requires huge data movement and tight coordination. Answering prompts may be more realistic for a floating node, at least in some situations.
Why AI data centers are moving offshore
AI data centers need huge amounts of electricity. They also need space, cooling systems and local support from communities that may not want a massive facility nearby. Those problems have pushed companies to look for unusual answers. Ocean-based computing is one of them.
Panthalassa says its nodes would operate far from shore in wave-rich parts of the ocean. The goal is to use that wave energy directly onboard instead of sending the power back to land. “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,” said Garth Sheldon-Coulson, Panthalassa’s co-founder and CEO.
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The ocean also offers cold surrounding water. That could help cool the chips onboard. Cooling is a major issue because data centers produce a lot of heat. Panthalassa is taking a different path from traditional land-based data centers. Instead of pulling more power from the grid, it wants floating nodes that generate their own electricity from waves.
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The Ocean-2 prototype sits inside a coastal facility, showing the size and shape of Panthalassa’s floating node before deployment at sea. (Panthalassa)
The satellite problem for ocean AI data centers
The ocean may help with power and cooling, but it creates another problem: connection. Traditional data centers rely on high-capacity fiber-optic connections because they need to move huge amounts of data fast. A floating node far out at sea may depend on low-Earth-orbit satellite links. That can work for some AI responses, but it may be slower and more limited than fiber.
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The challenge grows when multiple nodes need to work together. AI systems often depend on fast communication between chips, servers and storage. If those parts are floating in the ocean and talking by satellite, coordination gets harder. That means AI data centers at sea may not replace land-based data centers anytime soon. They may be better suited for certain AI tasks where the model can live onboard, and the response does not require constant back-and-forth with other machines.
Repairing floating AI nodes could be difficult
There is another practical question: What happens when something breaks? A land-based data center can send in technicians. A floating AI node in rough seas may need a ship, special equipment and the right weather window. That adds cost and delay.
Panthalassa says it is developing autonomous systems meant for harsh ocean conditions. Its press release says Ocean-3 testing is meant to demonstrate AI inference and refine manufacturing before commercial deployments in 2027. Still, the ocean is brutal. Saltwater eats away at equipment. Storms can turn a routine repair into a major operation. Constant motion also puts stress on the hardware. For this plan to work, Panthalassa will have to show that each node can keep running for years in harsh ocean conditions without frequent human repairs.
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Panthalassa’s Ocean-2 prototype is transported by barge, a reminder that building AI infrastructure at sea also means solving major deployment and maintenance challenges. (Panthalassa)
Ocean data centers have been tested before
Ocean data centers are not new. Microsoft experimented with underwater data center servers through Project Natick, including tests in 2015 and 2018. Those tests showed that sealed underwater servers could run reliably while using seawater for cooling, with Microsoft reporting a lower failure rate than comparable land-based systems. Microsoft later ended the project.
Chinese companies have also reportedly pushed ahead with underwater data center projects near Hainan and Shanghai. Keppel has explored floating data center designs in Singapore, where land constraints make the concept especially attractive. Panthalassa’s plan goes in a different direction. It combines wave power with onboard AI chips and satellite-based results. It also depends on floating nodes that would need to operate far from the kind of support a normal data center gets. That is why the idea is getting attention. It is also why skepticism is fair.
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What AI data centers at sea mean for you
For now, this will not change how your phone or computer works. You will not suddenly see a “powered by ocean waves” label on your favorite AI app. But the bigger picture affects everyone. AI needs an incredible amount of electricity. As more companies add AI tools to their products, they need more places to run those systems. That pressure can affect energy grids, water use, local battles over new data centers and even your utility bills over time.
Panthalassa argues its approach could reduce the need for new data centers and power plants on land. That could ease pressure on local communities and the grid, but the company still has to prove the system can work reliably at sea. If ocean-based AI moves beyond testing, it could also raise fresh questions about marine maintenance, environmental oversight and who controls computing infrastructure in international waters.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
Everyone is using AI on their phones and computers these days, but the heavy lifting often happens in huge data centers behind the scenes. That is why Panthalassa’s ocean plan is getting attention. The company wants to use waves for power and seawater for cooling. The hard part is proving that floating AI nodes can survive rough seas, limited satellite links and complicated maintenance. If Panthalassa can pull it off, ocean-based AI could become part of the tech we use every day. If it cannot, it may show just how difficult it is to keep feeding AI’s growing demand for power.
If this kind of ocean-powered AI takes off, would you worry about what these floating nodes could mean for our oceans? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com
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According to the Wall Street Journal, the export control directive that led to Anthropic cutting off access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 was triggered in part by cybersecurity research from Amazon and conversations between CEO Andy Jassy and the White House. According to the report, the paper from Amazon claims that, through a series of prompts, it was able to get Fable 5 to serve up information that could be used in cyberattacks. Amazon has yet to respond to a request for comment.
Shortly after Jassy shared the company’s findings with the government, it made the call to block its use by foreign nationals. Complicating this issue is that many of Anthropic’s researchers are foreign-born, meaning they were barred from accessing their own product.
In a statement, Anthropic disputed the government’s characterization of the issue as a “jailbreak.” It argued that many of the same vulnerabilities could be discovered using other publicly available models, including GPT 5.5. Some security researchers appear to back the company’s interpretation. Katie Moussouris, the founder and CEO of LutaSecurity posted on BlueSky that “I’ve seen the paper. It’s not a jailbreak.” Former Commerce Department official Kate Koren speculated to the WSJ that the White House’s dislike of Anthropic may have influenced the decision.
Anthropic and the Trump administration have been at odds for some time over the company’s refusal to allow its AI to be used for mass surveillance of Americans or to power lethal autonomous weapons. In February, Trump instructed federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s AI. And just hours later, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth designated the company a supply chain risk.
The government and the company seemed to have made amends, and the two had worked together to expand access to Mythos. However, now the two seem destined to clash again.
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A robot soccer player just gave goalkeepers another reason to feel nervous. Booster Robotics titled its YouTube video “Try Stopping This Robot,” and after watching its T1 humanoid hammer soccer balls toward a goal, you can see why.
Most of the kicks hit the curtain behind the net. But several shots appear to hit with enough force to leave visible impact marks and dents in the wall. That part is what everyone is talking about.
At first, it just looks like a viral robot soccer video. Then the wall damage makes the whole thing feel a lot more serious. This video also raises an important question: What happens if someone were to end up in the path of a soccer ball kicked by one of these robots?
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Booster Robotics’ T1 humanoid robot lines up a soccer kick inside the company’s lab, where its shots hit with enough force to dent the wall. (Booster Robotics)
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What is the Booster T1 humanoid robot?
The Booster T1 is a humanoid robot from Beijing-based Booster Robotics. According to Booster, the T1 stands about 3 feet, 10 inches tall and weighs about 66 pounds. Booster says the T1 has 23 to 41 degrees of freedom, depending on the configuration. In everyday terms, that means it has enough moving joints to walk, turn, balance and perform athletic movements.
The company also says the T1 can walk for about two hours and stand for about four hours on a charge. It supports open-source tools, software frameworks and API interfaces. That makes it easier for teams to train the robot for new tasks. The company also says more than 50 robotics teams and research institutes already use the platform.
How robot soccer helps train humanoid robots
There is also a serious reason companies test robots this way. Soccer forces a humanoid robot to deal with movement, balance and split-second changes. The ball does not stay still. The robot has to adjust its body, shift its weight and decide what to do next. That makes soccer a useful test for machines that may one day work around people.
Those lessons can carry beyond the soccer field. A robot that learns how to recover from a fall or adjust to a moving object could be more useful in a warehouse, lab or disaster zone. That is why robot soccer has become a way for engineers to test how these machines handle pressure when the action does not go perfectly.
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The soccer ball bounces back from the damaged lab wall after Booster Robotics’ T1 delivers a powerful kick. (Booster Robotics)
Booster T1 robot is built for developers
The T1 is meant for research and development. Booster positions the robot as a platform for schools, labs and robotics teams. Developers can use it to test software, train motion models and build new robot behaviors.
The company also offers RoboCup-related tools, including an open-source reinforcement learning framework and a demo system. That demo system covers perception, localization and decision-making for robot matches.
In other words, the T1 works like a serious robot body that developers can teach. That also explains why the wall-denting video is such a strong showcase. It shows the power, balance and control of these robots.
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Booster’s humanoid robot steps into a powerful kick, raising new questions about how much force these machines can safely use around people. (Booster Robotics)
Robot soccer power raises safety concerns
A robot strong enough to dent a wall can damage more than drywall. If a system fails, a powerful leg or arm could hurt someone nearby. That does not mean every humanoid robot poses a danger. It means companies need strong guardrails before these machines move into homes, hospitals, stores or public spaces.
Force limits matter. Emergency stops matter. Testing environments matter. Clear rules about where robots can operate matter. A robot in a lab can be impressive. A robot near the public needs a much higher safety bar.
RoboCup robot soccer has a bigger goal
Booster’s T1 is also part of the RoboCup world, which is basically an international robot soccer competition. But RoboCup isn’t only about robots kicking a ball around a field. The long-term goal is much bigger. RoboCup wants fully autonomous humanoid robots to eventually beat the human World Cup champions under official soccer rules.
That may sound like a wild idea. However, there is serious research behind it. Robot soccer forces teams to improve how these machines balance, see the field, react to movement and make decisions on their own. Booster says the T1 was built around robot soccer and RoboCup standards. The company also offers tools that help teams create robot soccer demos more quickly.
So, while robot soccer may look like a game, it is also helping engineers figure out how humanoid robots could become more capable in places far beyond the soccer field.
What this means for you
You may not care about robot soccer. Still, this kind of demo says a lot about the future of everyday robotics. Humanoid robots are learning to move with more confidence. They can balance better, recover faster and use their bodies with more force. That progress could eventually help with useful jobs, including warehouse work, elder care support or disaster response.
At the same time, stronger robots create new questions. Who checks their safety? Who sets the rules? Who is responsible when a robot breaks something or injures someone? The T1 video shows why the next phase of robotics really needs testing, transparency and accountability.
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Kurt’s key takeaways
This robot soccer video makes you stop and think. Booster Robotics’ T1 can kick a soccer ball with enough force to leave visible dents and impact marks in a wall. That to me is scary. It also raises a real safety question. As humanoid robots get stronger, companies will need to prove they can control that power around people. A robot kicking soccer balls in a lab is one thing. A robot near players, workers or bystanders is a very different story. Robot soccer may look like a game today. But it may also be showing us what tomorrow’s machines will be able to do. That is why it is important to keep an eye on this technology as it develops.
When you see a robot kick with this much force, does it make you excited about what is coming next, or worried about how safe these machines will be around people? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.
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A copy of Super Mario Bros., still in the box and sealed with its original sticker, just sold at Heritage Auctions for $3 million. That absolutely crushes the previous record of $2 million, also for a copy of Super Mario Bros., in 2021. That sale also came hot on the heels of a controversial auction of Super Mario 64 for $1.56 million.
Part of what drove the price of this particular copy so high is that, according to Heritage Auctions, instead of shrink wrap, this 19895 second run was sealed with a glossy sticker, which was discontinued shortly after. The site claims it’s the earliest known sealed copy of the game in existence. It’s also graded at 9.6 A++ by Professional Sports Authenticator.
The price of vintage gaming collectibles has been skyrocketing over the last few years. It was only in July of 2020 that Heritage Auctions set the record for the highest price paid for a game at auction, again, with a copy of Super Mario Bros., for $114,000. Six years later, that seems like an absolute bargain.
If the winner of the auction decides to do the unthinkable and break the seal on the game, Heritage Auctions is throwing in an NES console.
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