![\"ben](\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/uploads\/prod\/2018\/09\/Maryattphotography_bencutler_12x9-4465-5b8ec942bfe9a-1024x768.jpg\")
Ben Cutler from Microsoft Research. Photo by Maryatt Photography.<\/p><\/div>\n
Episode 40, September 5, 2018<\/h3>\n
Data centers have a hard time keeping their cool. Literally. And with more and more data centers coming online all over the world, calls for innovative solutions to \u201ccool the cloud\u201d are getting loud. So, Ben Cutler (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> and the Special Projects team at Microsoft Research decided to try to beat the heat by using one of the best natural venues for cooling off on the planet: the ocean. That led to Project Natick (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Microsoft\u2019s prototype plan to deploy a new class of eco-friendly data centers, under water, at scale, anywhere in the world, from decision to power-on, in 90 days. Because, presumably for Special Projects, go big or go home.<\/p>\n In today\u2019s podcast we find out a bit about what else the Special Projects team is up to, and then we hear all about Project Natick and how Ben and his team conceived of, and delivered on, a novel idea to deal with the increasing challenges of keeping data centers cool, safe, green, and, now, dry as well!<\/p>\n Ben Cutler: In some sense we\u2019re not really solving new problems. What we really have here is a marriage of these two mature industries. One is the IT industry, which Microsoft understands very well. And then the other is a marine technologies industry. So, we\u2019re really trying to figure out how do we blend these things together in a way that creates something new and beneficial?<\/p>\n (music plays)<\/strong><\/p>\n Host: You\u2019re listening to the Microsoft Research Podcast, a show that brings you closer to the cutting-edge of technology research and the scientists behind it. I\u2019m your host, Gretchen Huizinga.<\/strong><\/p>\n Host: Data centers have a hard time keeping their cool. Literally. And with more and more data centers coming online all over the world, calls for innovative solutions to \u201ccool the cloud\u201d are getting loud. So, Ben Cutler and the Special Projects team at Microsoft Research decided to try to beat the heat by using one of the best natural venues for cooling off on the planet: the ocean. That led to Project Natick, Microsoft\u2019s prototype plan to deploy a new class of eco-friendly data centers, under water, at scale, anywhere in the world, from decision to power-on, in 90 days. Because, presumably for Special Projects, go big or go home.<\/strong><\/p>\n In today\u2019s podcast we find out a bit about what else the Special Projects team is up to, and then we hear all about Project Natick, and how Ben and his team conceived of, and delivered on, a novel idea to deal with the increasing challenges of keeping data centers cool, safe, green, and, now, dry as well! That and much more on this episode of the Microsoft Research Podcast.<\/strong><\/p>\n Host: Ben Cutler. Welcome to the podcast.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n Host: You\u2019re a researcher in Special Projects at MSR. Give us a brief description of the work you do. In broad strokes, what gets you up in the morning?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: Well, so I think Special Projects is a little unusual. Rather than have a group that always does the same thing persistently, it\u2019s more based on this idea of projects. We find some new idea, something, in our case, that we think is materially important to the company, and go off and pursue it. And it\u2019s a little different in that we aren\u2019t limited by the capabilities of the current staff. We\u2019ll actually go out and find partners, whether they be in academia or very often in industry, who can kind of help us grow and stretch in some new direction.<\/p>\n Host: How did Special Projects come about? Has it always been \u201ca thing\u201d within Microsoft Research, or is it a fairly new idea?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: Special Projects is a relatively new idea. In early 2014, my manager, Norm Whitaker, who\u2019s a managing scientist inside Microsoft Research was recruited to come here. Norm had spent the last few years of his career at DARPA, which is Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has a very long history in the United States, and a lot of the seminal technology achieved is not just on the defense side, where we see things like stealth, but also on the commercial or consumer side had their origins in DARPA. And so, we\u2019re trying to bring some of that culture here into Microsoft Research and a willingness to go out and pursue crazy things and a willingness not just to pursue new types of things, but things that are in areas that historically we would never have touched as a company, and just be willing to crash into some new thing and see if it has value for us.<\/p>\n Host: So, that seems like a bit of a shift from Microsoft, in general, to go in this direction. What do you think prompted it, within Microsoft Research to say, \u201cHey let\u2019s do something similar to DARPA here?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: I think if you look more broadly at the company, with Satya, we have this very different perspective, right? Which is, not everything is based on what we\u2019ve done before. And a willingness to really go out there and draw in things from outside Microsoft and new ideas and new concepts in ways that we\u2019ve never done, I think, historically as a company. And this is in some sense a manifestation of this idea of, you know, what can we do to enable every person in every organization on the planet to achieve more? And a part of that is to go out there and look at the broader context of things and what kind of things can we do that might be new that might help solve problems for our customers?<\/p>\n Host: You\u2019re working on at least two really cool projects right now, one of which was recently in the news and we\u2019ll talk about that in a minute. But I\u2019m intrigued by the work you\u2019re doing in holoportation. Can you tell us more about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: If you think about what we typically do with a camera, we\u2019re capturing this two-dimensional information. One stage beyond that is what\u2019s called a depth camera, which is, in addition to capturing color information, it captured the distance to each pixel. So now I\u2019m getting a perspective and I can actually see the distance and see, for example, the shape of someone\u2019s face. Holoportation takes that a step further where we\u2019ll have a room that we outfit with, say, several cameras. And from that, now, I can reconstruct the full, 3-D content of the room. So, you can kind of think of this as, I\u2019m building a holodeck. And so now you can imagine I\u2019m doing a video conference, or, you know, something as simple as like Facetime, but rather than just sort of getting that 2-D, planar information, I can actually now wear a headset and be in some immersive space that might be two identical conferences rooms in two different locations and I see my local content, but I also see the remote content as holograms. And then of course we can think of other contexts like virtual environments, where we kind of share across different spaces, people in different locations. Or even, if you will, a broadcast version of this. So, you can imagine someone\u2019s giving a concert. And now I can actually go be at that concert even if I\u2019m not there. Or think about fashion. Imagine going to a fashion show and actually being able to sit in the front row even though I\u2019m not there. Or, everybody gets the front row seats at the World Cup soccer.<\/p>\n Host: Wow. It\u2019s democratizing event attendance.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: It really is. And you can imagine I\u2019m visiting the Colosseum and a virtual tour guide appears with me as I go through it and can tell me all about that. Or some, you know, awesome event happens at the World Cup again, and I want to actually be on the soccer field where that\u2019s happening right now and be able to sort of review what happened to the action as though I was actually there rather than whatever I\u2019m getting on television.<\/p>\n Host: So, you\u2019re wearing a headset for this though, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: You\u2019d be wearing an AR headset. For some of the broadcast things you can imagine not wearing a headset. It might be I\u2019ve got it on my phone and just by moving my phone around I can kind of change my perspective. So, there\u2019s a bunch of different ways that this might be used. So, it\u2019s this interesting new capture technology. Much as HoloLens is a display, or a viewing technology, this is the other end, capture, and there\u2019s different ways we can kind of consume that content. One might be with a headset, the other might just be on a PC using a mouse to move around much as I would on a video game to change my perspective or just on a cell phone, because today, there\u2019s a relatively small number of these AR\/VR headsets but there are billions of cell phones.<\/p>\n Host: Right. Tell me what you\u2019re specifically doing in this project?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: In the holoportation?<\/p>\n Host: Yeah.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, really what\u2019s going on right now is, when this project first started to outfit a room, to do this sort of a thing, might\u2019ve been a couple hundred thousand dollars of cost, and it might be 1 to 3 gigabits of data between sites. So, it\u2019s just not really practical, even at an enterprise level. And so, what we\u2019re working on is, with the HoloLens team and other groups inside the company, to really sort of dramatically bring down that cost. So now you can imagine you\u2019re a grandparent and you want to kind of play with your grandkids who are in some other location in the world. So, this is something that we think, in the next couple years, actually might be at the level the consumers can have access to this technology and use it every day.<\/p>\n Host: This is very much in the research stage, though, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: We have an email address and we hear from people every day, \u201cHow do I buy this? How can I get this?\u201d And you know, it\u2019s like, \u201cHey, here\u2019s our website. It\u2019s just research right now. It\u2019s not available outside the company. But keep an eye on this because maybe that will change in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Host: Yeah. Yeah, and that is your kind of raison d\u2019etre is to bring these impossibles into inevitables in the market. That should be a movie. The Inevitables.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: I think there\u2019s something similar to that, but anyway\u2026<\/p>\n Host: I think a little, yeah. So just drilling a little bit on the holoportation, what\u2019s really cool I noticed on the website, which is still research, is moving from a room-based hologram, or holoported individual, into mobile holoportation. And you\u2019ve recently done this, at least in prototype, in a car, yes?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: We have. So, we actually took an SUV. We took out the middle seat. And then we mounted cameras in various locations. Including, actually, the headrests of the first-row passengers. So that if you\u2019re sitting in that back row we could holoport you somewhere. Now this is a little different than, say, that room-to-room scenario. You can imagine, for example, the CEO of our company can\u2019t make a meeting in person, so he\u2019ll take it from the car. And so, the people who are sitting in that conference room will wear an AR headset like a HoloLens. And then Satya would appear in that room as though he\u2019s actually there. And then from Satya\u2019s perspective, he\u2019d wear a VR headset, right? So, he would not be sitting in his car anymore. He would be holoported into that conference room.<\/p>\n (music plays)<\/strong><\/p>\n Host: Let\u2019s talk about the other big project you\u2019re doing: Project Natick. You basically gave yourself a crazy list of demands and then said, \u201cHey, let\u2019s see if we can do it!\u201d Tell us about Project Natick. Give us an overview. What it is, how did it come about, where it is now, what does it want to be when it grows up?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, Project Natick is an exploration of manufactured data centers that we place underwater in the ocean. And so, the genesis of this is kind of interesting, because it also shows not just research trying to influence the rest of the company, but that if you\u2019re working elsewhere inside Microsoft, you can influence Microsoft Research. So, in this case, go back to 2013, and a couple employees, Sean James and Todd Rawlings, wrote this paper that said we should put data centers in the ocean and the core idea was, the ocean is a place where you can get good cooling, and so maybe we should look at that for data centers. Historically, when you look at data centers, the dominant cost, besides the actual computers doing the work, is the air conditioning. And so, we have this ratio in the industry called PUE, or Power Utilization Effectiveness. And if you go back a long time ago to data centers, PUEs might be as high as 4 or 5. A PUE of 5 says that, for every watt of power for computers, there\u2019s an additional 4 watts for the air conditioning, which is just kind of this crazy, crazy thing. And so, industry went through this phase where we said, \u201cOK, now we\u2019re going to do this thing called hot aisle\/cold aisle. We line up all the computers in a row, and cold air comes in one side and hot air goes out the other.\u201d Now, modern data centers that Microsoft builds have a PUE of about 1.125. And the PUE we see of what we have right now in the water is about 1.07. So, we have cut the cooling cost. But more importantly we\u2019ve done it in a way that we\u2019ve made the data center much colder. So, we\u2019re about 10-degrees Celsius cooler than land data centers. And we\u2019ve known, going back to the middle of the 20th century, that higher temperatures are a problem for components and in fact, a factor of 10-degree Celsius difference can be a factor of 2 difference of the life expectancy of equipment. So, we think that this is one way to bring reliability up a lot. So, this idea of reliability is really a proxy for server longevity and how do we make things last longer? In addition to cooling, there\u2019s other things that we have here. One of which is the atmosphere inside this data center is dry nitrogen atmosphere. So, there\u2019s no oxygen. And the humidity is low. And we think that helps get rid of corrosion. And then the other thing is, data centers we get stuff comes from outside. So, by having this sealed container, safe under the ocean we hopefully have this environment that will allow servers to last much longer.<\/p>\n Host: How did data center technology and submarine technology come together so that you could put the cloud under water?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: Natick is a little bit unusual as a research project because in some sense we\u2019re not really solving new problems. What we really have here is a marriage of these two mature industries. One is the IT industry, which Microsoft understands very well. And then the other is a marine technologies industry. So, we\u2019re really trying to figure out, how do we blend these things together in a way that creates something new and beneficial?<\/p>\n Host: And so, the submarine technology, making something watertight and drawing on the decades that people have done underwater things, how did you bring that together? Did you have a team of naval experts\u2026?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, the first time we did this, we just, sort of, crashed into it, and we, literally, just built this can and we just kind of dropped it in the water, and ok, we can do this, it kind of works. And so, then the second time around, we put out what we call a Request for Information. We\u2019re thinking of doing this thing, and we did this to government and to academia and to industry, and just to see who\u2019s interested in playing this space? What do they think about it? What kind of approaches would they take? And you know, we\u2019re Microsoft. We don\u2019t really know anything about the ocean. We\u2019ve identified a bunch of folks we think do know about it. And on the industry side we really looked at three different groups. We looked to ship builders, we looked to people who were doing renewable energy in the ocean, which we should come back to that, and then we looked to oil and gas services industry. And so, we got their response and on the basis of that, we then crafted a Request for Proposal to actually go off and do something with us. And that identified what kind of equipment we put inside it, what our requirements were in terms of how we thought that this would work, how cool it had to be, the operating environment that needed to be provided for the servers, and also some more mundane stuff like, when you\u2019re shipping it, what\u2019s the maximum temperature things can get to when it\u2019s like, sitting in the sun on a dock somewhere? And, on the basis of that, we got a couple dozen proposals from four different continents. And so, we chose a partner and then set forward. And so, in part, we were working with University of Washington Applied Physics Lab\u2026 is one of three centers of excellence for ocean sciences in the United States, along with Woods Hole and Scripps. And so, we leveraged that capability to help us go through the selection process. And then the company we chose to work with is a company called Naval Group, which is a French company, and among other things, they do naval nuclear submarines, surface ships, but they also do renewable energies. And, in particular, renewable energies in the ocean, so offshore wind, they do tidal energy which is to say, gaining energy from the motion of the tides, as well as something called OTEC which is Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion. So, they have a lot of expertise in renewable energy. Which is very interesting to us. Because another aspect of this that we like is this idea of co-location with offshore renewable energies. So, the idea is, rather than connecting to the grid, I might connect to renewable energies that get placed in the same location where we put this. That\u2019s actually not a new idea for Microsoft. We have data centers that are built near hydroelectric dams or built near windfarms in Texas. So, we like this idea of renewable energy. And so, as we think about this idea of data centers in the ocean, it\u2019s kind of a normal thing, in some sense, that this idea of the renewables would go with us.<\/p>\n Host: You mentioned the groups that you reached out to. Did you have any conversation with environmental groups or how this might impact sea life or the ocean itself?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, we care a lot about that. We like the idea of co-location with the offshore renewables, not just for the sustainability aspects of this, but also for the fact that a lot of those things are going up near large populations centers. So, it\u2019s a way to get close to customers. We\u2019re also interested in other aspects of sustainability. And those include things like artificial reefs. We\u2019ve actually filed an application for a patent having to use this idea of undersea data centers, potentially, as artificial reefs.<\/p>\n Host: So, as you look to maybe, scaling up\u2026 Say this thing, in your 5-year experiment, does really well. And you say, \u201cHey, we\u2019re going to deploy more of these.\u201d Are you looking, then, with the sustainability goggles on, so to speak, for Natick staying green both for customers but also for the environment itself?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: We are. And I think one thing people should understand too, is you look out at the ocean and it looks like this big, vast open space, but in reality, it\u2019s actually very carefully regulated. So anywhere we go, there are always authorities and rules as to what you can do and how you do them, so there\u2019s that oversight. And there\u2019s also things that we look at directly, ourselves. One of the things that we like about these, is from a recyclability standpoint, it\u2019s a pretty simple structure. Every five years, we bring that thing back to shore, we put a new set of servers in, refresh it, send it back down, and then when we\u2019re all done we bring it back up, we recycle it, and the idea is you leave the seabed as you found it. On the government side, there\u2019s a lot of oversight, and so, the first thing to understand is, typically, like, as I look at the data center that\u2019s there now, the seawater that we eject back into the ocean is about 8\/10 of a degree warmer, Celsius, than the water that came in. It\u2019s a very rapid jet, so, it very quickly mixes with the other seawater. And in our case, the first time we did this, a few meters downstream it was a few thousandths of a degree warmer by the time we were that far downstream.<\/p>\n Host: So, it dissipates very quickly.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: Water\u2026 it takes an immense amount of energy to heat it. If you looked at all of the energy generated by all the data centers in the world and pushed all of them at the ocean, per year you\u2019d raise the temperature a few millionths of a degree. So, in net, we don\u2019t really worry about it. The place that we worry about it is this idea of local warming. And so, one of the things that\u2019s nice about the ocean is because there are these persistent currents, we don\u2019t have buildup of temperature anywhere. So, this question of the local heating, it\u2019s really just, sort of, make sure your density is modest and then the impact is really negligible. An efficient data center in the water actually has less impact on the oceans than an inefficient data center on land does.<\/p>\n Host: Let\u2019s talk about latency for a second. One of your big drivers in putting these in the water, but near population centers, is so that data moves fairly quickly. Talk about the general problems of latency with data centers and how Natick is different.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, there are some things that you do where latency really doesn\u2019t matter. But I think latency gets you in all sorts of ways, and in sometimes surprising ways. The thing to remember is, even if you\u2019re just browsing the web, when a webpage gets painted, there\u2019s all of this back-and-forth traffic. And so, ok, so I\u2019ve got now a data center that\u2019s, say, 1,000 kilometers away, so it\u2019s going to be 10 milliseconds, roundtrip, per each communication. But I might have a couple hundred of those just to paint one webpage. And now all of a sudden it takes me like 2 seconds to paint that webpage. Whereas it would be almost instantaneous if that data center is nearby. And think about, also, I\u2019ve got factories and automation and I\u2019ve got to control things. I need really tight controls there in terms of the latency in order to do that effectively. Or imagine a future where autonomous vehicles become real and they\u2019re interacting with data centers for some aspect of their navigation or other critical functions. So, this notion of latency really matters in a lot of ways that will become, I think, more present as this idea of intelligent edge grows over time.<\/p>\n Host: Right. And so, what\u2019s Natick\u2019s position there?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, Natick\u2019s benefit here, is more than half the world\u2019s population lives within a couple hundred kilometers of the ocean. And so, in some sense, you\u2019re finding a way to put data centers very close to a good percentage of the population. And you\u2019re doing it in a way that\u2019s very low impact. We\u2019re not taking land because think about if I want to put a data center in San Francisco or New York City. Well turns out, land\u2019s expensive around big cities. Imagine that. So, this is a way to go somewhere where we don\u2019t have some of those high costs. And, potentially, with this offshore renewable energy, and not, as we talked about before, having any impact on the water supply.<\/p>\n Host: So, it could solve a lot of problems all at once.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: It could solve a lot of problems in this very, sort of, environmentally sustainable way, as well as, in some sense, adding these socially sustainable factors as well.<\/p>\n Host: Yeah. Talk a little bit about the phases of this project. I know there\u2019s been more than one. You alluded to that a little bit earlier. But what have you done stage wise, phase wise? What have you learned?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, Phase 1 was a Proof of Concept, which is literally, we built a can, and that can had a single computer rack in it, and that rack only had 24 servers. And that was about one-third of the space of the rack. It was a standard, what we call, 42U rack, which reflects the size of the rack. Fairly standard for data centers. And then other two thirds were filled with what we call load trays. Think of them as, all they do is, they\u2019ve got big resistors that generate heat. So, it\u2019s like hairdryers. And so, they\u2019re used, actually, today in data centers to just, sort of, commission new data centers. Test the cooling system, actually. In our case, we just wanted to generate heat. Could we put these things in the water? Could we cool it? What would that look like? What would be the thermal properties? So, that was a Proof of Concept just to see, could we do this? Could we just, sort of, understand the basics? Were our intuitions right about this? What sort of problems might we encounter? And just, you know, I hate to use\u2026 but, you know, get our feet wet. Learning how to interact\u2026<\/p>\n Host: You had to go there.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: It is astonishing the number of expressions that relate to water that we use.<\/p>\n Host: Oh gosh, the puns are\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: It\u2019s tough to avoid. So, we just really wanted to get some sense of, what it like was to work with the marine industry? Every company and, to some degree, industry, has ways in which they work. And so, this was really an opportunity for us to learn some of those and become informed, before we go to this next stage that we\u2019re at now. Which is more as a prototype stage. So, this vessel that we built this time, is about the size of a shipping container. And that\u2019s by intent. Because then we\u2019ve got something that\u2019s of a size that we can use standard logistics to ship things around. Whether the back of a truck, or on a container ship. Again, keeping with this idea of, if something like this is successful, we have to think about what are the economics of this? So, it\u2019s got 12 racks this time. It\u2019s got 864 servers. It\u2019s got FPGAs, which is something that we use for certain types of acceleration. And then, each of those 864 servers has 32 terabytes of disks. So, this is a substantial amount of capability. It\u2019s actually located in the open ocean in realistic operating conditions. And in fact, where we are, in the winter, the waves will be up to 10 meters. We\u2019re at 36 meters depth. So that means the water above us will vary between 26 and 46 meters deep. And so, it\u2019s a really robust test area. So, we want to understand, can this really work? And what, sort of, the challenges might be in this realistic operating environment.<\/p>\n Host: So, this is Phase 2 right now.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: This is Phase 2. And so now we\u2019re in the process of learning and collecting data from this. And just going through the process of designing and building this, we learned all sorts of interesting things. And so, turns out, when you\u2019re building these things to go under the ocean, one of the cycling that you get is just from the waves going by. And so, as you design these things, you have to think about how many waves go by this thing over the lifetime? What\u2019s the frequency of those waves? What\u2019s the amplitude of those waves? And this all impacts your design, and what you need to do, based on where you\u2019re going to put it and how long it will be. So, we learned a whole bunch of stuff from this. And we expect everything will all be great and grand over the next few years here. But we\u2019ll obviously be watching, and we\u2019ll be learning. If there is a next phase, it would be a pilot. And now we\u2019re talking to build something that\u2019s larger scale. So, it might be multiple vessels. There might be a different deployment technology than what we used this time, to get greater efficiency. So, I think those are things that, you know, we\u2019re starting to think about, but mostly, right now, we\u2019ve got this great thing in the water and we\u2019re starting to learn.<\/p>\n Host: Yeah. And you\u2019re going to leave it alone for 5 years, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: This thing will just be down there. Nothing will happen to it. There will be no maintenance until it\u2019s time to retire the servers, which, in a commercial setting, might be every 5 years or longer. And then we\u2019ll bring it back. So, it really is the idea of a lights-out thing. You put it there. It just does its thing and then we go and pull it back later. In an actual commercial deployment, we\u2019d probably be deeper than 36 meters. The reason we\u2019re at 36 meters, is, it turns out, 40 meters is a safe distance for human divers to go without a whole lot of special equipment. And we just wanted that flexibility in case we did need some sort of maintenance or some sort of help during this time. But in a real commercial deployment, we\u2019d go deeper, and one of the reasons for that, also, is just, it will be harder for people to get to it. So, people worry about physical security. We, in some sense, have a simpler challenge than a submarine because a submarine is typically trying to hide from its adversaries. We\u2019re not trying to hide. If we deploy these things, we\u2019d always be within the coastal waters of a country and governed by the laws of that country. But we do also think about, let\u2019s make this thing safe. And so, one of the safety aspects is not just the ability to detect when things are going around you, but also to put it in a place where it\u2019s not easy for people to go and mess with it.<\/p>\n Host: Who\u2019s using this right now? I mean this is an actual test case, so, it\u2019s a data center that somebody\u2019s accessing. Is it an internal data center or what\u2019s the deal on that?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, this data center is actually on our global network. Right now, it\u2019s being used by people internally. We have a number of different teams that are using it for their own production projects. One group that\u2019s working with it, is we have an organization inside Microsoft called AI for Earth. We have video cameras, and so, one of the things that they do is, they\u2019re watching the different fish going by, and other types of much more bizarre creatures that we see. And characterizing and counting those, and so we can kind of see how things evolve over time. And one of the things we\u2019re looking to do, potentially, is to work with other parties that do these more general assessments and then provide some of those AI technologies to them for their general research of marine environment and how, when you put different things in the water, how that affects things, either positively or negatively. Not just, sort of, what we\u2019re doing, but other types of things that go in the water which might be things as simple as cables or marine energy devices or other types of infrastructure.<\/p>\n Host: I would imagine, when you deploy something in a brand-new environment, that you have unintended consequences or unexpected results. Is there anything interesting that\u2019s come out of this deployment that you\u2019d like to share?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, I think when people think of the ocean, they think this is like a really hostile and dangerous place to put things. Because we\u2019re all used to seeing big storms, hurricanes and everything that happens. And to be sure, right at that interface between land and water is a really dangerous place to be. But what you find is that, deep under the waves on the seabed, is a pretty quiet and calm place. And so, one of the benefits that we see out of this, is that even for things like 100-year hurricanes, you will hear, acoustically, what\u2019s going on, on the surface, or near the land\u2026 waves crashing and all this stuff going on. But it\u2019s pretty calm down there. The idea that we have this thing deep under the water that would be immune to these types of things is appealing. So, you can imagine this data center down there. This thing hits. The only connectivity back to land is going to be fiber. And that fiber is largely glass, with some insulating shell, so it might be fuse so it will break off. But the data center will keep operating. Your data center will still be safe, even though there might be problems on land. So, this diversity of risk is another thing that\u2019s interesting to people when we talk about Natick.<\/p>\n Host: What about deployment sites? How have you gone about selecting where you put Project Natick and what do you think about other possibilities in the future?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, for this Phase 2, we\u2019re in Europe. And Europe, today, is the leader in offshore renewable energies. Twenty-nine of the thirty largest offshore windfarms are located in Europe. We\u2019re deployed at the European Marine Energy Center in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. The grid up there is 100% renewable energy. It\u2019s a mix of solar and wind as well as these offshore energies that people are testing at the European Marine Energy Center or EMEC. So, tidal energy and wave energy. One of the things that\u2019s nice about EMEC is people are testing these devices. So, in the future, we have the option to go completely off this grid. It\u2019s 100% renewable grid, but we can go off and directly connect to one of those devices and test out this idea of a co-location with renewable energies.<\/p>\n Host: Did you look at other sites and say, hey, this one\u2019s the best?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: We looked at a number of sites. Both test sites for these offshore renewables as well as commercial sites. For example, go into a commercial windfarm right off the bat. And we just decided, at this research phase, we had better support and better capabilities in a site that was actually designed for that. One of the things is, as I might have mentioned, the waves there get very, very large in the winter. So, we wanted some place that had very aggressive waters so that we know that if we survive in this space that we\u2019ll be good pretty much anywhere we might choose to deploy.<\/p>\n Host: Like New York. If you can make it there\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: Like New York, exactly.<\/p>\n Host: You can make it anywhere.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n (music plays)<\/strong><\/p>\n Host: what was your path to Microsoft Research?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: So, my career\u2026 I would say that there\u2019s been very little commonality in what I\u2019ve done. But the one thing that has been common is this idea of taking things from early innovation to market introduction. So, a lot of my early career was in startup companies, either as a founder or as a principle. I was in super computers, computer storage, video conferencing, different types of semiconductors, and then I was actually here at Microsoft earlier, and I was working in a group exploring new operating system technologies. And then, after that, I went to DARPA, where I was there for a few years working on different types of information technology. And then I came back here. And, truthfully, when I first heard about this idea that they were thinking about doing these underwater data centers, it just sounded like the dumbest idea to me, and\u2026 But you know, I was willing to go and then, sort of, try and think through, ok, on the surface it sounds ridiculous. But a lot of things start that way. And you have to be willing to go in, understand the economics, understand the science and the technology involved, and then draw some conclusion of whether you think that can actually go somewhere reasonable.<\/p>\n Host: As we close, Ben, I\u2019m really interested in what kinds of people you have on your team, what kinds of people might be interested in working on Special Projects here. Who\u2019s a good fit for a Special Projects research career?<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: I think we\u2019re looking for people who are excited about the idea of doing something new and don\u2019t have fear of doing something new. In some sense, it\u2019s a lot like people who\u2019d go into a startup. And what I mean by that is, you\u2019re taking a lot more risk, because I\u2019m not in in a large organization, I have to figure out a lot of things out myself, I don\u2019t have a team that will know all these things, and a lot of things may fall on the floor just because we don\u2019t have enough people do get everything done. It\u2019s kind of like driving down the highway and you\u2019re, you know, lashed to the front bumper of the car. You\u2019re fully exposed to all the risk and all the challenges of what you\u2019re doing. And you\u2019re, you know, wide open. There\u2019s no end of things to do and you have to figure out what\u2019s important, what to prioritize, because not everything can get done. But have the flexibility to really, then, understand that even though I can\u2019t get everything done, I\u2019m going to pick and choose the things that are most important and really drive in new directions without a whole lot of constraints on what you\u2019re doing. So, I think that\u2019s kind of what we look to. I have only two people who actually directly report to me on this project. That\u2019s the team. But then I have other people who are core members, who worked on it, who report to other people, and then across the whole company, more than two hundred people touched this Phase 2, in ways large and small. Everything from helping us design the data center, to people who refurbished servers that went into this. So, it\u2019s really a \u201cOne Microsoft\u201d effort. And so, I think that there\u2019s always opportunities to engage, not just by being on a team, but interacting and providing your expertise and your knowledge base to help us be successful. Because only in that way that we can take these big leaps. And so, in some sense, we\u2019re trying to make sure that Microsoft Research is really staying true to this idea of pursuing new things but not just five years out, in known fields, but look at these new fields. Because the world is changing. And so, we\u2019re always looking for people who are open to these new ideas and frankly are willing to bring new ideas with them as to where they think we should go and why. And that\u2019s how we as a company I think grow and see new markets and are successful.<\/p>\n (music plays)<\/strong><\/p>\n Host: Ben Cutler, it\u2019s been a pleasure. Thanks for coming on the podcast today.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ben Cutler: My pleasure as well.<\/p>\n To learn more about Ben Cutler (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Project Natick (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, and the future of submersible data centers, visit natick.research.microsoft.com (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Episode 40, September 5, 2018 – In today\u2019s podcast we find out a bit about what else the Special Projects team is up to, and then we hear all about Project Natick and how Ben and his team conceived of, and delivered on, a novel idea to deal with the increasing challenges of keeping data centers cool, safe, green, and, now, dry as well!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37074,"featured_media":504416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"msr-url-field":"https:\/\/player.blubrry.com\/id\/36624371\/","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240054],"tags":[],"research-area":[13561,13562,198583,13551,13547],"msr-region":[],"msr-event-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-post-option":[],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-promo-type":[],"msr-podcast-series":[],"class_list":["post-502553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-msr-podcast","msr-research-area-algorithms","msr-research-area-computer-vision","msr-research-area-ecology-environment","msr-research-area-graphics-and-multimedia","msr-research-area-systems-and-networking","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_event_details":{"start":"","end":"","location":""},"podcast_url":"https:\/\/player.blubrry.com\/id\/36624371\/","podcast_episode":"","msr_research_lab":[],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-publications":[],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-academic-programs":[],"related-groups":[768895,901101],"related-projects":[236139],"related-events":[],"related-researchers":[{"type":"user_nicename","value":"Ben Cutler","user_id":31188,"display_name":"Ben Cutler","author_link":"Ben Cutler<\/a>","is_active":false,"last_first":"Cutler, Ben","people_section":0,"alias":"bcutler"}],"msr_type":"Post","featured_image_thumbnail":"Related:<\/h3>\n
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\nEpisode Transcript<\/h3>\n
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