Immediate access to cooling provides significant improvements in power and cost efficiency over traditional, on-land computing infrastructure. During my time working with them in the fall of 2024, we developed a prototype for a stationary, underwater vessel which carried 40kW of hardware.

My primary responsibility was designing the cooling systems for the vessel. Being submerged, we developed a hybrid approach which involved actively pumping cooling fluid and passively cooling the interior through the vessel walls. Since this was a three-person startup (at the time), I wore many other hats: designing operational logistics, developing professional renders for pitch decks, reading through legislation, and doing my fair share of manual labor as well.

The entire system fit the dimensions of a server rack for ease of integration and only cost $3,500 (the majority of which was the heat exchangers). The system recirculated chemically treated water between two separate cooling loops - optimizing the flow rate for each heat exchanger and isolating sensistive hardware in case of any external failures.

Other

• learned the nuances of building with PVC and Unistrut
• engaged with contractors to make key design decisions for the cooling loop and broader vessel
• learned how to make professional renders
• became a wizard with google sheets

I learned a plethora of practical skills, but also how to deal with stressful situations, how to prioritize, and how to balance independent work with contributions to the team's needs. Coming in, I hadn't taken heat transfer and had just taken fluid mechanics. Needless to say there were some steep learning curves. But working up to 115 hours a week, I grew more quickly with NetworkOcean than I ever had before. It was a chaotic, wonderful experience.