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Date	November 2020	Marks available	12	Reference code	20N.1.HL.TZ0.5
Level	HL	Paper	1	Time zone	no time zone
Command term	Discuss	Question number	5	Adapted from	N/A

Question

Clouds under the sea

Microsoft has located one of its data centres on the seabed. Project Natick is now operating 100 feet below the surface of the North Sea (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: An artist’s representation of a data centre on the sea bed

[Adapted under sea photo by NOAA on Unsplash]

Microsoft has chosen to develop data centres on the seabed because they claim there are concerns about the environmental impact of data centres built on land. These seabed data centres can be constructed and placed on the sea bed in 90 days. This is compared to the two years that are required for land-based data centres.

Google patented their design for an underwater data centre in 2009. Even though functioning prototypes have been trialled, none have been used commercially.

The demand for data storage is doubling every two years, so it is likely that an increasing number of data centres will need to be constructed. These data centres can be constructed either under the sea or on land.

Discuss whether companies like Microsoft should build data centres on the seabed.

Markscheme

Answers may include:

Reasons why Microsoft should build data centres on the seabed (claim):

The water surrounding the data centre can be used to cool it (space, feasibility).
The percentage of the world’s water used for this purpose is almost infinitesimally small, so there is going to be almost no environmental effect (space, feasibility, acceptability).
They can be hidden and will not be unsightly (space, acceptability).
They won’t take up valuable sites on land that could be used for housing (space, feasibility).
They are likely to need less maintenance, as once submerged they are less affected by changes in weather conditions (reliability, feasibility).
The underwater data centres will take relatively less time to construct compared to those on land (cost).
The increase in data storage requirements is growing rapidly/exponentially.
They provide quick connections for remote coastal areas that otherwise have to use data centres that are much further away (systems, feasibility).

Reasons why Microsoft should not build data centres on the seabed (counter-claim):

The technology has existed for 10 years, but there has been no commercial development of these data centres – why is this the case (reliability, feasibility)?
The data centres may need to be backed up terrestrially, so it may not be as environmentally friendly as suggested (systems).
Maintenance will be more difficult, as they are less accessible (systems, feasibility).
The data centres may have an impact on local ecosystems, e.g., heat from the plants / chemicals leaching from the equipment (cost, acceptability, values).
The cables to the data centres may be damaged by ships (systems).
Seabed data centres may be significantly more expensive than land-based ones (cost, acceptability).
Finding efficient ways of delivering backup power suppliers to an underwater site may be problematic (cost, feasibility).

In this question it is expected there will be a balance between the terminology related to digital systems and the terminology related to social and ethical impacts.

Keywords: environment, pollution, e-waste, reliability, connectivity, storage, maintenance, cloud, change, systems, values, cost, feasibility, acceptability

Refer to HL paper 1 Section B markbands when awarding marks. These can be found under the "Your tests" tab > supplemental materials > Digital society markbands and guidance document.