Shipbuilders race to build floating data centers as AI demand surges

As AI drives surging demand for data centers, Korean shipbuilders are looking offshore, racing to develop Floating Data Centers (FDC) that can ease land, power and cooling constraints.

HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering signed a memorandum of understanding with global data center infrastructure company Schneider Electric on Wednesday to jointly develop infrastructure technology for FDCs.

The two companies will work together on power and cooling infrastructure optimized for offshore environments.

FDCs are deployed on floating offshore structures in rivers, coastal waters and at sea. As the proliferation of AI data centers makes securing land, power supplies and local approval increasingly difficult, FDCs have emerged as a potential solution: They use seawater for cooling, which improves energy efficiency while reducing land requirements and expanding site options.

The shipbuilding industry sees FDCs as a high-value business opportunity.

Constructing a conventional land-based data center with a capacity of 100 megawatts costs between $800 million and $1.2 billion, excluding land acquisition and graphics processing units, or GPUs, according to DS Investment & Securities. FDCs require additional seawater cooling systems and other safety equipment, which allows shipbuilders to command higher prices and margins than they would on conventional commercial vessels.

Moody's Investors Service estimates that global investment in AI data center infrastructure could reach as much as $3 trillion by 2030.

Korean shipbuilders are expected to be well positioned to compete, given their experience building offshore plants and their access to large dry docks.

"Only shipyards in Korea, China and Japan have dry docks large enough to build large FDCs," said one shipbuilding industry source. "Experience designing and building offshore plants will also provide a competitive advantage."

Samsung Heavy Industries is widely viewed as the domestic leader in the sector. The company received an approval in principle for the conceptual design of an FDC for a 50-megawatt FDC design from the American Bureau of Shipping and Lloyd's Register at the 2026 Data Center World exhibition in Washington in April. The barge-type design generates its own electricity using liquefied natural gas to power the data center. Samsung Heavy Industries signed a joint development agreement with U.S. AI server maker Super Micro Computer last month and aims to commercialize the technology in the second quarter of 2028.

HD Hyundai is in the early stages of entering the FDC business, while Hanwha Ocean is considering joining the market.

Several challenges remain before commercialization. International standards and safety regulations have yet to be established, and further testing is needed to determine how vibration, vessel movement, salt exposure and humidity affect AI servers and other data center equipment.

"Cooperation between shipbuilders and data center companies is currently focused on developing technologies such as offshore positioning control and protection against salt and humidity, while verifying whether AI servers can operate reliably at sea," another industry source said. "Additional testing and industry standards will be needed before commercialization."

BY LEE SU-JEONG [[email protected]]