Samsung: It's Time for Floating Data Centers

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Samsung: It's Time for Floating Data Centers<br>Shipbuilding Unit Will Partner With Mousterian on Initial Deployment in Houston

Rich Miller<br>May 20, 2026<br>∙ Paid

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A model of a floating data center (FDC) design at the Samsung Heavy Industries booth at Data Center World in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Rich Miller)<br>The shipbuilding arm of Samsung is building vessels to serve as floating data centers, and will partner with a U.S. developer on its initial deployment.<br>Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) launched its floating data center initiative last month at the Data Center World conference, with models of the new vessels and a booth outlining its strategy.

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At the event it announced a strategic initiative with Dallas-based Mousterian , a new data center company specializing in floating and “water-adjacent” campuses.<br>The first development will be a multi-vessel deployment in the Houston market, using a playbook that addresses key challenges in the current AI market:<br>The site is fully energized, and will operate behind the meter with no impact on ratepayers.

It won’t use any potable water, tapping local bodies of water for cooling.

The cooling system will operate with low noise and low vibration.

Mousterian believes this approach is replicable across many markets.<br>Samsung’s Data Center Initiative

Samsung’s ambitions in AI infrastructure were highlighted in October 2025, when it announced a collaboration with OpenAI to accelerate data center deployments.<br>“Samsung C&T and Samsung Heavy Industries will collaborate with OpenAI to advance global AI data centers, with a particular focus on the joint development of floating data centers,” the company announced.<br>The companies said SHI and Samsung C&T, a construction and engineering unit, will also pursue projects in floating power plants.<br>Water-based data centers are a novel concept that has intrigued the industry since Google first floated the idea in a 2007 patent filing. There have been a range of approaches, including Microsoft’s test of an undersea data center and floating data centers developed by Nautilus Data Technologies .<br>This approach can address land scarcity, lower cooling costs, and reduce carbon emissions. But issues with cost and complexity have limited deployments.<br>The Collaboration With Mousterian

The new collaboration between SHI and Mousterian is built on a shared view that floating data centers near existing power can shorten development timelines, unlocking stranded generation capacity.

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