Naver is expanding its investment from securing AI infrastructure to future-oriented data center technologies based on renewable energy.

Naver announced on the 13th that it has invested in Panthalassa, a startup developing offshore AI data centers. Founded in 2016, Panthalassa is a U.S. startup developing floating AI data centers that utilize wave power generation. The company is developing an eco-friendly data center model that can continuously produce electricity using wave energy without separate power plants or fuel.

Panthalassa has integrated key functions required to build and operate AI data centers—ranging from power generation to AI computation and processing, and cooling—into a single floating node platform at sea. In particular, as a floating data center, it can reduce costs such as land expenses needed to establish data centers. In addition, by using seawater, it can lower the share of power consumption for cooling facilities compared with onshore data centers.

Furthermore, even without separate power transmission infrastructure, AI workloads such as computation and processing can be carried out directly on the node. The computation results are transmitted to land via low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication networks such as Starlink. LEO satellites have low latency, making them suitable for AI inference tasks where fast response is critical, and they enable global communications without submarine cables, reducing geographical constraints.

Panthalassa has been conducting offshore demonstrations through wave power generation platforms such as “Ocean-1” and “Ocean-2,” and plans to deploy the “Ocean-3” platform for demonstration within this year, targeting commercialization next year.

Choi Soo-yeon, CEO of Naver, said, “Naver is expanding its business domain into AI data centers and rapidly securing differentiated data center infrastructure through global partnerships,” adding, “We will also make preemptive investments in next-generation technologies such as wave-power-based renewable energy AI data centers to strengthen our competitiveness in the global AI infrastructure market in multiple dimensions.”

Meanwhile, wave power generation is a form of marine energy that produces electricity from the movement of waves. Compared with solar or wind power, it is considered advantageous because it is less affected by weather conditions and can operate 24 hours a day.

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