Naver said on Aug. 13 it has invested in Pantalasa, a U.S. startup developing offshore artificial intelligence (AI) data centers.

Pantalasa was founded in Oregon in 2016 and is developing floating AI data centers that use wave power generation.

Pantalasa's data center implements power production, AI computation and processing, and seawater-based cooling on an offshore floating node platform. It runs AI workloads on the node without separate power transmission infrastructure, and sends the computing results to land via low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite networks such as Starlink.

Pantalasa conducted offshore demonstrations through its Ocean-1 and Ocean-2 platforms. It plans to carry out a demonstration deployment of the Ocean-3 platform later this year, aiming for commercialisation in 2027.

Naver CEO Soo-yeon Choi (최수연) said, "We are expanding our business into AI data centers and securing infrastructure through partnerships and other means." She added, "We will strengthen our competitiveness in the AI infrastructure market by investing in technologies such as wave-power-based renewable energy AI data centers."

Pantalasa reached a valuation of about $1 billion after a $140 million investment round led by Peter Thiel. The round included Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, venture capitalist John Doerr, Supermicro and Hanwha Asset Management.