AI data center developer Exascale Labs has partnered with energy storage firm EnergyBank to explore developing AI data centers co-located with floating offshore wind and long-duration battery energy storage.

The companies 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. The pilot project – formally known as Hywind Demo – began operations in 2009 and has a capacity of approximately 2.3MW. The project was developed by Equinor and acquired by Zephyros in 2019.

“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.”

The pilot project is expected to have a capacity of 800kW and be completely independent from the grid. It is expected to include the deployment of an Exascale modular data center, a fully integrated modular solution that comprises GPU server racks, power distribution, UPS battery backup, switchboards, and management systems.

The pilot is expected to lay the foundation for a repeatable model for future deployments, with the companies targeting compute deployments of up to 10MW per turbine.

EnergyBank said it expects to fund the initial pilot via 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 signing of the MoU, the partners intend to conduct joint technical feasibility work, define a reference architecture for the pilot, and create a roadmap for scaling beyond the pilot.

The deal follows a similar proposal announced earlier this year to integrate data center capacity within a floating wind turbine. In March, US floating wind firm Aikido launched a new floating offshore wind platform integrated with a modular data center. The offshore wind platform is expected to host a turbine with between 15 and 18MW of capacity, which would support 10-12MW of IT capacity.