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

Anyone who has weathered a hurricane can tell you that the oceans — which fuel the storms — contain a tremendous amount of energy. Thanks to global warming, they’re holding more than ever. 

A new startup wants to harness that energy to power data centers.

Drogue, which has kept a low profile until now, is building a system that harvests heat from the ocean to power data centers on board floating vessels. According to co-founder and CEO Sam Sipe, the first prototype should be bobbing around the ocean, crunching bits, less than two years from now.

The goal, Sipe said, is to help data center developers deploy servers in AI-friendly timelines. “The data center industry is a real estate game, and so they’re playing on 8- to 10-year timelines, including interoperability with utilities and [independent system operators]” that manage regional power grids, he said. “AI demand has increased 10x in just the last three years. It’s completely incompatible.”

Drogue was founded just six months ago in Washington, D.C., and the startup told TechCrunch exclusively that it has already raised $20 million, including from XYZ Venture Capital, Toyota Ventures, Tamarack Global, Dream, FDVC,

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