Aikido Technologies has unveiled a concept that combines floating offshore wind turbines, battery storage, and AI data centers on a single platform.
The offshore infrastructure company says its new platform, called AO60DC, is designed to co‑locate AI-grade computing directly with renewable energy generation at sea.
Wind, batteries, and AI compute on one floating platform
Each AO60DC platform is designed to host 10–12 megawatts (MW) of AI-grade compute alongside a 15–18 MW+ wind turbine and integrated battery storage.
Aikido says the platforms could be deployed in farms ranging from 30 MW to more than 1 gigawatt of IT load. The onboard wind turbine and battery system would power the data center most of the time, with a grid connection used mainly during the summer months.
Batteries could also be pre‑charged ahead of grid-stress events, which Aikido says could shorten the time required to connect new capacity.
Because the units can be located within 200 miles of major computing hubs, with round‑trip time (RTT) below 10 milliseconds, the company says they could enable countries with limited land or power availability to build large‑scale AI infrastructure offshore.
“Before we go off-world, we should go offshore,” said Aikido CEO Sam Kanner. “Aikido is well positioned to integrate proven, offshore components with typical data hall construction techniques to build GW-scale AI factories faster, cleaner, cheaper, and more efficiently than conventional techniques.”
Why offshore?
Offshore environments offer some advantages. Energy, space, and cooling are more abundant, and the ocean can act as a massive heat sink for servers.
The units can be deployed in sovereign waters at more than 50 GW of sites worldwide that are already set aside for this type of development, which could make permitting and grid connections much faster.
The company combines its wind turbine substructure and the data center enclosure into a single steel unit. Data halls can be prefabricated onshore and lifted into place during final assembly.
Faster offshore deployment
At the center of the design is Aikido’s modular semi‑submersible floating platform, which the company describes as a “flat‑pack” system. Aikido says its structure can be assembled up to 10 times faster than that of conventional offshore platforms.
Semi‑submersible platforms are already widely used in offshore oil and gas and floating wind projects and have been deployed for more than 25 years.
The company expects the platform to achieve a power usage effectiveness (PUE) below 1.08. A passive cooling system transfers heat from the servers through the steel hull into the surrounding seawater.
Aikido says the thermal impact would be limited to a small area extending only a few meters from the structure.
The units can be installed and serviced using vessels already operating in the offshore wind and deepwater oil and gas industries, enabling maintenance response times similar to those of land‑based data centers. Platforms can also be staffed for days at a time to service equipment and maintain typical data center uptime standards. The integrated data halls are engineered to provide high levels of physical security.
First projects already planned
A proof‑of‑concept unit is being developed in Norway and is scheduled for deployment later this year.
Aikido is targeting the UK for its first commercial project, which it hopes will be operational by 2028. The company says it has already identified a site and is working through detailed engineering and commercial discussions.
Aikido is part of the NVIDIA Inception program and says it has already received early interest from AI inference customers.
If the concept works, offshore wind farms could end up powering not just the grid but also the next generation of AI infrastructure. What do you think of Aikido’s offshore wind + battery storage + AI data center concept? Let me know in the comments below.
Read more: Nine EU nations to join forces on 100 GW of North Sea wind
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