Exascale Labs has partnered with EnergyBank to colocate compute at the world's first floating wind installation in Norway.
AI data center developer Exascale Labs has partnered with energy storage firm EnergyBank to explore the development of AI data centers co-located with floating offshore wind and long-duration battery energy storage. The companies have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) outlining plans for an initial pilot project in partnership with Zephyros-One, the world’s first offshore floating wind turbine located off the coast of Norway. Formally known as Hywind Demo, the site began operations in 2009 with a capacity of approximately 2.3MW. Originally developed by Equinor, the asset was acquired by Zephyros in 2019.
The pilot is expected to reach a capacity of 800kW and operate completely independently from the electrical grid. It will feature the deployment of an Exascale modular data center—a fully integrated solution comprising GPU server racks, power distribution, UPS battery backup, switchboards, and management systems. This initiative aims to establish a repeatable framework for future deployments, with the partners targeting compute capacities of up to 10MW per turbine.
“AI infrastructure growth is not constrained by the lack of availability of advanced chips. Rather, it is due to the inability to secure and deliver power at the required scale and within commercially viable timelines,” said Hoansoo Lee, CEO of Exascale. “Our modular platform is purpose-built to operate off-grid, which means floating offshore wind farms by EnergyBank’s technology can deliver compute-ready power without waiting years for a grid connection.”
EnergyBank stated it expects to finance the initial pilot through a combination of private investment and potential public funding opportunities. “As AI workloads grow denser, reliable power access has become the binding constraint on new data center capacity. By taking floating wind off-grid and integrating generation, storage and modular data centers into a single system, we can turn variable offshore power into firm, high-value compute without waiting years for a grid connection. Wind developers gain a direct route to market, compute operators gain access to new power capacity, and the overall project can capture substantially more value from the same energy asset,” said Tim Hawkey, CEO of EnergyBank.
Following the MoU signing, the partners will conduct joint technical feasibility studies, define a reference architecture for the pilot, and develop a roadmap for scaling beyond the initial phase. The announcement follows a comparable industry move earlier this year. In March, U.S. floating wind developer Aikido unveiled a new floating offshore wind platform integrated with a modular data center. Designed to host a turbine with 15 to 18MW of capacity, the platform is expected to support 10 to 12MW of IT load.