‘Panthalassa has opened the ocean frontier’: Thiel-backed startup secures $140 million to deploy floating AI data centers
Panthalassa plans to deploy autonomous AI data centers in the North Pacific Ocean
Peter Thiel has thrown his weight behind renewable energy and ocean technology firm Panthalassa, with funding for an autonomous ocean wave power system for floating AI data centers.
The Oregon-based firm has announced $140 million in Series B financing led by Peter Thiel, along with dozens of existing and new investors.
“The future demands more compute than we can imagine,” said Thiel. “Extra-terrestrial solutions are no longer science fiction. Panthalassa has opened the ocean frontier.”
Panthalassa said the investment will be used to complete its pilot manufacturing facility near Portland and accelerate the deployment of its Ocean-3 series of nodes, which will carry out AI inference at sea.
“There are three sources of energy on the planet with tens of terawatts of new capacity potential: solar, nuclear, and the open ocean,” said Garth Sheldon-Coulson, co-founder and CEO of Panthalassa.
“We’ve built a technology platform that operates in the planet’s most energy-dense wave regions, far from shore, and turns that resource into reliable clean power. We’re now ready to build factories, deploy fleets, and provide a sustainable new source of energy for humanity.”
Panthalassa eyes offshore AI inference
Panthalassa’s nodes are autonomous, floating energy systems that are mass-produced from plate steel in coastal factories and deployed far out to sea, where the surrounding ocean provides free supercooling.
Rather than transmitting energy back to terrestrial grids, Panthalassa uses it directly onboard to power AI chips, sending inference tokens to land via satellite.
The company has run prototypes, Ocean-1, Ocean-2, and Wavehopper, in 2021 and 2024, demonstrating the core power generation, propulsion, autonomy, and at-sea computing technologies required.
This year, it plans to deploy its Ocean-3 pilot node series in the northern Pacific Ocean, demonstrating AI inference capabilities and refining its manufacturing process in preparation for commercial deployments in 2027.
“Panthalassa’s autonomous wave power system is a game changer in addressing global energy needs and clean power generation,” said investor John Doerr.
“It is a triple win: workers benefit, communities benefit, and we gain a strategic asset that strengthens American technological leadership.”
Ocean-powered AI
Panthalassa isn't the first firm to look at siting power generation for AI out at sea. Just a few weeks ago, for example, Aikido Technologies announced plans for a floating offshore wind platform integrated with a data center.
The firm plans to kick off with a 100-kilowatt unit in the North Sea off the coast of Norway by the end of this year, which, if successful, will be followed with a 15-to-18-megawatt project off the coast of the UK in 2028.
Meanwhile, British firm Core Power is said to be in talks with the Pentagon about the deployment of floating nuclear power plants, which could be docked at naval facilities to power military data centers.
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