Edinburgh-based Mocean Energy has unveiled Blue Core, a self-powered offshore data centre concept that aims to cut energy costs and sidestep land, water and grid constraints as AI demand soars.

The company is seeking a £5 million Pre-Series A round, supported by £2.8m of non-dilutive funding already secured, to develop the concept alongside its existing offshore power business.

Mocean's move targets a looming capacity crunch in AI infrastructure. Global demand for AI‑optimised computing is forecast to quadruple within the next decade, according to the International Energy Agency, with AI data centres projected to use 1,200 TWh annually by 2035 — roughly four times the UK's current yearly electricity consumption. Operators often face years-long waits for grid connections and rising local opposition to land-based sites, while some resort to gas turbines just to get online.

Blue Core relocates computing offshore. Each module combines wave energy, offshore solar and battery storage to power on‑board AI server racks, connects via low‑Earth orbit satellite links, and delivers 500 kW to 1 MW without a grid tie. Units can be aggregated into farms and are designed primarily for AI inference workloads. Cooling — typically 15% to 35% of an onshore facility’s energy use — is expected to be about 5% at sea, using a closed‑loop system that rejects heat to the ocean rather than drawing on municipal water.

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Cameron McNatt, Managing Director of Mocean Energy, said: "We've spent years proving this technology works in some of the harshest sea conditions anywhere in the world. Blue Core takes that same proven system and points it at a much bigger problem. AI data centres are going to need more power than the grid can easily give them, and the ocean can provide that.

"We're not trying to build another data centre. We're trying to remove the barriers around power, land and social licensing that are currently holding the industry back.

"Because Blue Core is built like an assembly line rather than a megaproject, units are manufactured and deployed one at a time. This means a single unit and a thousand-unit farm come from the same building block and any unit can be pulled out for maintenance or a GPU upgrade without disrupting the rest. When sited in national waters, the farms also provide sovereign infrastructure rather than a lease on another country's cloud."

Investor interest in ocean-based computing is gathering pace. Microsoft's Project Natick reported an underwater data centre was eight times more reliable than an equivalent onshore setup, while China already has an offshore facility in operation backed by about $226m. In 2025, Swedish wave power firm CorPower Ocean raised €140m in Series B and EU funding, and Panthalassa secured $140m for a floating AI data centre concept. Y Combinator has also highlighted 'Compute at Sea' in its latest Requests for Startups.

Blue Core builds on Mocean's Blue Star offshore power system, which has completed 18 months of full‑scale trials in harsh marine conditions with international offshore energy companies and technology developers, including several supermajors. The two platforms share core components — power conversion, mooring and controls — proven across a decade at sea. Mocean has secured a further Blue Star pilot and is forecasting first Blue Star sales in 2028.

In parallel, Blue Core is targeting its first offshore demonstrator and early commercial deployments from 2030, working towards a ten‑year goal of 6 GW — around 2% of projected AI data centre demand. Mocean says that once built, a unit’s power is effectively free over the asset's life and estimates the approach could avoid about 13 million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2035.