Oregon’s Panthalassa Secures $140M Funding for Innovative Wave-Powered AI Centers
Oregon’s climate tech pioneer, Panthalassa, has recently announced a monumental $140 million Series B funding round. The round, led by billionaire investor Peter Thiel, is set to fuel the development of the world’s first wave-powered floating AI data centers.
The trailblazing company has plans to launch autonomous, ocean-based computing platforms, known as Ocean-3. These platforms will utilize wave energy to power AI inference computing, while leveraging cold seawater for natural cooling. The floating data centers, each approximately 85 meters in diameter, will operate far from shore without traditional grid connections or anchors, transmitting computing results back to land via satellite.
“The future demands more compute than we can imagine,” said Peter Thiel. “Extra-terrestrial solutions are no longer science fiction. Panthalassa has opened the ocean frontier.”
The funding will facilitate the completion of Panthalassa’s pilot manufacturing facility near Portland, Oregon. Commercial deployments are planned for 2027 in the northern Pacific Ocean. The company, which employs 120 people and operates as a public benefit corporation, has already tested prototypes Ocean-1, Ocean-2, and Wavehopper at sea.
The investment round has catapulted the company’s valuation to nearly $1 billion. Notable participants in the round included John Doerr, Marc Benioff’s TIME Ventures, Max Levchin’s SciFi Ventures, among other prominent investors.
Source: Business Wire