Water consumption and land usage are two critical - yet often overlooked - components of data centre sustainability . Founded in 2016 by an ex-US Navy engineer , Nautilus Data Technologies looks to solve both of those problems by building data centres that float on the water . The company spun up its first site in April of last year - a 7 MW facility mounted on a barge in the Port of Stockton California , located just a few miles away from Silicon Valley , where hyperscale data centres guzzle down millions of gallons of fresh water per day in the drought-stricken state .

Necessity often proves to be the mother of invention . When looking for a way around lengthy lead times for land permits , edge micro data centre firm Edge Centres struck upon an innovative new approach : off-grid solar powered edge data centres . The sites , which continue to go live across Australia , have next-to-zero dependency on the local utility grid , and run year-round on solar power alone , making for some of the world ’ s most sustainable small-scale data centres in operation today .

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