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Startup Drogue plans floating data centers powered by ocean heat
TechCrunch reported Friday that six-month-old Drogue raised $20 million to build ocean thermal energy systems that would power data centers on ships, with a prototype planned for early 2028.
- New headline Was: “This young startup wants to power floating data centers with the ocean’s heat, and investors are already on board”
- Our desk filed its story
Drogue, a Washington, D.C., startup founded about six months ago, told TechCrunch exclusively that it has raised $20 million to generate electricity from ocean temperature differences and use that power for data centers on floating vessels1.
Investors named by the company include XYZ Venture Capital, Toyota Ventures, Tamarack Global, Dream, FDVC, Garuda Ventures, Flexcap, Boost VC and Slow Ventures, TechCrunch reported Friday1.
Co-founder and chief executive Sam Sipe said the first multi-megawatt prototype would be installed on a conventional ocean-going ship and put to sea in early 2028, with later versions on structures more like offshore oil platforms1.
Sipe argued land data-center timelines of eight to 10 years, including utility interconnection, cannot match recent growth in AI computing demand. "AI demand has increased 10x in just the last three years. It's completely incompatible," he told TechCrunch1.
The company is using ocean thermal energy conversion, or OTEC, a method studied since the 1950s: warm surface water and cold water from about 1,000 meters (about 3,280 feet) drive a sealed ammonia loop through a turbine1.
TechCrunch described the cycle as drawing warm surface water, using it to cool servers, then using that warmer water to boil ammonia, which vaporizes at minus 28 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 33 Celsius); after the turbine, deep cold water condenses the ammonia and the warmed deep water is pumped back down1.
Sipe, a former U.S. Navy E-2D Hawkeye pilot, told the outlet that manufacturing of pipes and heat exchangers has improved since 1980s OTEC tests, and that data centers are a better at-sea load than sending power ashore because servers are compact and data links are cheaper than long cables1.
Drogue has "approval in principle" from the American Bureau of Shipping and is buying its first ship for the prototype, according to TechCrunch; each vessel would stay at sea about a decade, Sipe said1.
The report says oceans have been taking up about 5.8 million terawatt-hours of extra heat a year as the planet warms, versus about 180,000 terawatt-hours of annual human energy use; whether Drogue's systems can be built at useful scale, stay reliable, and win customers is not independently verified in the article1.
