Nuclear-powered floating data center startup Atomarine has raised $19 million in a seed round.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts, firm has received the cash from a group of investors led by Y Combinator, with contributions from Pantera Capital, Soma Capital, Seven Seven Six, Liquid 2 Ventures, Audacious Ventures, and E14 Fund.

Founded by MIT students Dimitris Koutentakis and Emile Germonpré, Atomarine intends to mount small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) on ships to power floating platforms of modular data centers.

The company believes its nuclear ships will eventually be able to provide 150MW of power, enough to power two platforms. With SMRs yet to hit the market (none of the vendors working in the space have released a commercial model or achieved regulatory approval for the US or any other market), the company intends to first rely on natural gas generators, which will be mounted on its ships.

Speaking to DCD earlier this year, Koutentakis said: “We’ve been talking to some potential partners about getting access [to an SMR]. But with the minor engineering changes that would be required and the regulatory timelines, we’re targeting a first deployment in 2031 or 2032.”

Writing on LinkedIn following the funding announcement, Koutentakis said: “By moving offshore, we do not compete with communities for water, power or land, and we do not drive up their electricity bills or rent. This allows America to stay competitive in the AI race without putting the burden on local communities, while fighting climate change by scaling AI on nuclear instead of fossil fuels.

“We have already built a functional proof of concept, and we are now racing towards our next big milestone.”

Armed with its seed funding, the company is hiring engineers with specialisms in “naval architecture, nuclear, or data center design,” Koutentakis added.

Atomarine is one of numerous companies, in the US and around the world, looking to put AI compute at sea. DCD covered this emerging section of the data center market in depth in issue 62 of the magazine.