In particular, areas near densely populated regions suffer from high land prices and fierce complaints from residents regarding electromagnetic waves and noise. On the other hand, remote areas are hindered by data transmission delay (latency) issues and power grid connection costs. Furthermore, land-based data centers consume a large amount of cooling power, resulting in a significant loss of total received power.

Additionally, while constructing land-based data centers takes years due to land regulations, land acquisition, and building permit procedures, it is far too slow to meet the rapidly increasing AI demand.

The FDC has emerged as the answer to these chronic limitations. By floating structures on the sea and directly cooling servers using abundant deep-sea water, FDCs dramatically reduce energy consumption and operational costs. Furthermore, they are relatively free from land regulations, and the modular construction method can significantly shorten the delivery time.

HD Hyundai Chasing Samsung Heavy Industries’ Preemption, Overseas in Demonstration Stage

The domestic shipbuilding industry recognizes FDCs not as simple vessels but as high value-added offshore plant projects, engaging in a full-fledged preemptive competition.

Samsung Heavy Industries has taken the fastest lead as the domestic frontrunner. It has acquired Approval in Principle (AiP) and basic approval for a MW-class FDC conceptual design from global classification societies (ABS, LR), and joined hands with global AI server company Supermicro and power equipment enterprise ABB. Recently, it has drawn close to the commercialization stage, signing a contract for FDC design and production with Mousterian, a specialized data center developer in the United States.

HD Hyundai is accelerating its pursuit by establishing a dedicated organization centered on its shipbuilding intermediate holding company HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering and HD Hyundai Marine Solution. Recently, it signed an MOU with Schneider Electric, a global power infrastructure giant in France, to jointly develop an integrated power and cooling infrastructure for FDCs. The company is strengthening its Turn-key strategy, which supplies the FDC platform and its own power supply network as an integrated unit by linking not only its shipbuilding capabilities but also its proprietary engine generator infrastructure.

Based on its know-how in offshore plants and eco-friendly energy operations, Hanwha Ocean has initiated market entry and business feasibility reviews for FDCs, completing the Big 3 competitive landscape.

Overseas, demonstrations of underwater and floating concepts have been actively progressing, centered on Big Tech companies and specialized shipowners. Microsoft (MS) conducted “Project Natick,” which installed an underwater submarine-type data center with French state-owned shipbuilder Naval Group, proving high cooling efficiency and a low server failure rate.

Singapore’s Keppel Data Centres is pursuing a barge-based floating data center park, and Japan’s MOL has proposed a business model to convert secondhand vessels into FDCs, indicating that the global market has also entered the blooming stage.

Full-scale Upsizing and Commercialization in 2030

According to global credit rating agency Moody’s, an investment of up to $3 trillion  is expected to be made in AI data center infrastructure by 2030. Accordingly, the FDC market is also projected to experience exponential growth.

One of the core challenges for FDCs is to reduce reliance on land-based power grids. In the future, FDCs are highly likely to develop into a “self-sufficient data island” format that operates independently without external power grids by directly linking to offshore wind power generation complexes or floating Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

Along with this, by mass-producing 50MW to 500MW-class FDC modules in a factory-type manner utilizing the standardized production systems unique to shipyards, the industry will immediately respond to the massive data center construction demands of Big Tech companies (hyperscalers).

The full-scale commercialization of FDCs is expected to bring a massive paradigm shift to the global shipbuilding industry beyond a simple “addition of a new product.”

The existing shipbuilding industry has been severely swayed by the cyclical business cycle of docks. However, since FDCs align with the AI investment schedules of Big Tech, it can serve as a momentum to derisk (mitigate risks) the existing commercial vessel-centric revenue structure and expand the business portfolio into an “energy and digital infrastructure platform” supplier.

Furthermore, compared to general commercial vessels, an FDC is the highest-priced offshore plant concentrated with advanced engineering, including offshore structure design, blocking, flameproofing, vibration control, and power system integration. Beyond simple hull construction, high margins can be secured across the entire service area, including power grid supply, maintenance, repair and operations (MRO), and retrofitting businesses.

Therefore, in a situation where latecomers such as China have pursued closely to the chin with low-cost orders, FDCs are projected to be the optimal stage for Korea’s shipbuilding Big 3, equipped with overwhelming offshore plant engineering capabilities and power and cooling system integration competencies, to build a super-gap technological barrier.

FDCs represent a representative convergence industry born from the meeting of the massive AI wave and traditional offshore engineering technologies. The preemptive market moves by Samsung Heavy Industries and HD Hyundai are expected to serve as a turning point for the Korean shipbuilding industry to advance into a new future of constructing an “artificial intelligence network on the sea,” moving beyond the era of building ships that sail on the sea.

Source: BusinessKorea