'Project Natick' Is An Underwater Data Center, And Is Not In Natick

NATICK, MA–If you've caught the name Project Natick in your social media feeds, you've probably wondered about it, especially if you're from Natick.

We did, too.

Turns out, Project Natick has nothing to do with the town of Natick, but is rather a "code name" for a Microsoft research project to manufacture and operate an underwater datacenter. Microsoft references the question about "Project Natick" in its FAQ section about the project, indicating that it's "a town in Massachusetts" but ultimately just a code name.

"The initial experimental prototype vessel, christened the Leona Philpot after a popular Xbox game character was operated on the seafloor approximately one kilometer off the Pacific coast of the United States from August to November of 2015," writes Microsoft. "Project Natick reflects Microsoft’s ongoing quest for cloud datacenter solutions that offer rapid provisioning, lower costs, high responsiveness, and are more environmentally sustainable."

The project started in 2013 when a Microsoft employee who had served on a US Navy submarine authored a paper on ThinkWeek that was read by Norm Whitaker, who built a team to explore the idea of putting computers and entire datacenters in water. Microsoft officially kicked off the project in 2014.

"Project Natick reflects Microsoft’s ongoing quest for cloud datacenter solutions that offer rapid provisioning, lower costs, high responsiveness, and are more environmentally sustainable," said Microsoft in a statement.

Photo via Project Natick press kit