Naver Invests in Panthalassa, US Developer of Wave-Powered Floating AI Data Centers

Naver has invested in Panthalassa, a US startup developing floating AI data centers powered by wave energy, the company announced on August 13.

The investment amount was not disclosed. The move comes as Naver accelerates efforts to secure AI data center infrastructure while expanding its focus to next-generation renewable energy–based data center technologies.

Founded in Oregon in 2016, Panthalassa is developing floating AI data centers that harness wave energy for power generation. Founder and CEO Garth Sheldon-Coulson is a former executive at Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, while co-founder Brian Lee Moffat is a specialist engineer in wave energy.

As global AI proliferation drives surging power demand for data centers, securing electricity has emerged as a critical challenge. Panthalassa is developing an environmentally sustainable data center model capable of continuous power production through wave energy—without requiring separate power plants or fuel.

Panthalassa’s floating node platform integrates all core functions necessary for AI data center construction and operation: power generation, AI compute and processing, and cooling. By operating as a floating facility, the design eliminates land acquisition costs associated with conventional data centers, delivering cost advantages over onshore facilities. The system is designed to use seawater for server cooling, replacing energy-intensive cooling equipment that accounts for a significant share of power consumption in traditional data centers.

The nodes can perform AI workloads such as computation and processing directly on-site, without requiring dedicated transmission infrastructure. Computation results are transmitted to land via low-Earth-orbit satellite networks such as Starlink. Low-Earth-orbit satellites offer low latency suited to AI inference tasks requiring fast responses, and enable global communication without geographic constraints or subsea cables.

Panthalassa has conducted at-sea demonstrations with wave energy platforms including Ocean-1 and Ocean-2. The company plans to deploy the Ocean-3 platform for demonstration this year, targeting commercial launch in 2027.

In May, PayPal and Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel led a $140 million funding round, joined by Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, venture capitalist John Doerr, data center company Supermicro, Hanwha Asset Management, and other prominent global investors. The round valued the company near the $1 billion mark, attracting significant global attention as a leader in next-generation sustainable AI data center technology.

“Naver is expanding into the AI data center business and rapidly securing differentiated data center infrastructure through global partnerships,” said Naver CEO Sooyeon Choi. “By proactively investing in next-generation technologies such as wave-based renewable energy AI data centers, we will strengthen our competitiveness in the global AI infrastructure market across multiple fronts.”

Last month, Naver announced a $10 billion partnership with Brookfield and Nvidia to build a 200 MW National AI Factory in Sejong, expanding its investment scope from AI infrastructure to future-oriented, renewable energy–based data center technologies.

In the broader energy sector, COSMOS Lab recently closed a $15.7 million Series A round to scale production of its non-flammable aqueous zinc-halogen battery technology.