Search engine company Google is planning to use sea water from the Baltic Sea to cool servers in its new data centre facility to be opened in Finland.
The new data centre will be in place of an old paper mill named Summa. It will use the mill’s old granite tunnel, built by the mill owners during the 1950s, to transport the water required to cool its servers.
The water from the tunnel will be made suitable for cooling servers after being made to pass through straining systems and a heat exchanger.
Google paid $52m for the paper mill property, including 410 acres of land. The total construction and land cost come out to $260m. However, Google expects large savings from the efficient cooling system.
Google has released a video showing off how the system would work.
The data centre, expected to open sometime this fall, will be the first to use the technique, said the company.
