This young startup wants to power floating data centers with the ocean’s heat, and investors are already on board

Summary

• Drogue is a Washington, DC-based startup founded six months ago that aims to power data centers on floating vessels using ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC).
• The company has raised $20 million from investors including XYZ Venture Capital, Toyota Ventures, Tamarack Global, Dream, FDVC, Garuda Ventures, Flexcap, Boost VC, & Slow Ventures.
• Co-founder & CEO Sam Sipe states the first prototype will operate at sea within two years, with a multi-megawatt version scheduled for installation on a traditional ship in early 2028.
• Future iterations will utilize floating structures resembling offshore oil platforms, with each vessel designed to operate at sea for approximately a decade.
• The technology functions as a reverse heat pump by utilizing the temperature difference between warm surface water & cold deep water (averaging 39˚ F) to generate electricity.
• The system draws warm surface water to cool data centers, uses it to boil ammonia into gas, passes the gas through a turbine for power generation, & then cools it back into liquid using cold water from 1,000 meters deep.
• Oceans absorb an additional 5.8 million terawatt-hours of energy annually due to global warming, vastly exceeding the 180,000 terawatt-hours used by all human civilization each year.
• The startup selected data centers for their compact size relative to other equipment & the low cost of transmitting data compared to shipping physical goods or laying expensive cables to shore.
• Drogue has received "approval in principle" from the American Bureau of Shipping & is currently purchasing its first ship to build a prototype for the open ocean.
• The company cites advancements in manufacturing techniques for pipes & heat exchangers as key factors enabling the revival of OTEC technology, which was previously tested in the 1980s.