Nautilus to Complete First Floating Data Center Post USD 100 Million Loan from Orion Energy Partners

Nautilus Data Technologies has secured a sum of USD 100 million in funding from Orion Energy Partners that will help it to complete a 6-megawatt floating colocation facility, situated in the Port of Stockton, California. Nautilus specializes in the construction of water-borne structures, which rest on a moored barge and are cooled by water. The USD 100 million funding will help to complete finish all projects, of which the Stockton data center is expected to be delivered by the end of 2020. The barge-borne data center will use the firm’s signature cooling system, cold water, and a heat exchanger system that uses the water surrounding the building as a reservoir.

This latest “debt facility” is the most substantial sum of money given to Nautilus so far.

The company’s CEO, James L. Connaughton, said, “Orion Energy is providing Nautilus with flexible capital to complete the commissioning of our Stockton I data center, strategically located in Northern California at the Port of Stockton.”

He also mentioned, “This capital will allow Nautilus to showcase and then rapidly expand our transformative approach to meeting the urgent business and community demand for higher performing and more sustainable data center solutions.”

While focusing more on sustainability, Orion Energy is an investment company committed to investing in energy businesses.

Gerrit Nicholas, the Managing Partner at Orion Energy, is of the view, “Nautilus is well-positioned to set the standard for providing sustainable and reliable data center services to its customers.”

Nautilus has been busy building data center barges in the US and Ireland since its formation in 2015. The innovative concept of building data centers on water bodies initiated by Nautilus has been met with criticism many times. Last year, after the Limerick Port Users Group dropped objections in 2019, the company’s USD 40 million Irish data center in the city of Limerick received the green light.