Panthalassa Secures $140 Million in Series B Funding to Deploy Ocean-Based AI Computing Infrastructure
May 4, 2026
Panthalassa Secures $140 Million in Series B Funding to Deploy Ocean-Based AI Computing Infrastructure
Panthalassa, a renewable energy and ocean technology company, has raised $140 million in Series B financing to advance the manufacturing and deployment of autonomous, ocean-powered computing systems. The round was led by prominent investor Peter Thiel, with participation from a wide range of new backers including John Doerr, Marc Benioff’s TIME Ventures, Max Levchin’s SciFi Ventures, Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Hanwha Asset Management’s venture fund, Fortescue Ventures, and Super Micro Computer, among others. Returning investors such as Founders Fund, Gigascale Capital, and Lowercarbon Capital also joined the round. The funding will be used to complete the company’s pilot manufacturing facility near Portland, Oregon, and accelerate the deployment of its Ocean-3 series of nodes, which are designed to perform AI inference computing at sea using electricity generated from ocean waves.
The significance of this development lies in the growing constraints faced by terrestrial data centers, including limited grid capacity, water scarcity for cooling, supply chain bottlenecks, and permitting delays. Panthalassa’s platform offers an alternative by expanding energy and AI computing capacity without requiring new data centers or power plants on land, thereby reducing strain on the grid and lowering ecological impacts. The company’s nodes are autonomous, floating energy systems mass-produced from plate steel in coastal factories. They operate in distant ocean regions, generating clean electricity around the clock. Instead of transmitting energy back to terrestrial grids, the power is used directly onboard to run AI chips, with inference tokens sent to land via satellite. The surrounding ocean provides free supercooling, addressing one of the largest engineering challenges in land-based data centers and potentially extending chip lifetimes.
Panthalassa has spent the past decade developing the core technologies behind its platform, including power generation, propulsion, autonomy, and at-sea computing. The company’s Ocean-1, Ocean-2, and Wavehopper prototypes, tested in 2021 and 2024, have proven these capabilities at sea. In 2026, the company plans to deploy its Ocean-3 pilot node series in the northern Pacific Ocean to demonstrate AI inference capabilities and refine its manufacturing process ahead of commercial deployments scheduled for 2027. “There are three sources of energy on the planet with tens of terawatts of new capacity potential: solar, nuclear, and the open ocean,” said Garth Sheldon-Coulson, Co-Founder and CEO of Panthalassa. “We’ve built a technology platform that operates in the planet’s most energy-dense wave regions, far from shore, and turns that resource into reliable clean power. We’re now ready to build factories, deploy fleets, and provide a sustainable new source of energy for humanity.”
The broader implications for the industry are significant. As demand for electricity and computing continues to surge, Panthalassa’s approach could relieve pressure on terrestrial infrastructure and reduce energy costs for families and businesses. Peter Thiel commented, “The future demands more compute than we can imagine. Extra-terrestrial solutions are no longer science fiction. Panthalassa has opened the ocean frontier.” John Doerr added, “Panthalassa’s autonomous wave power system is a game changer in addressing global energy needs and clean power generation. It is a triple win: workers benefit, communities benefit, and we gain a strategic asset that strengthens American technological leadership.” The company, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, operates as a public benefit corporation and is backed by a coalition of leading investors focused on sustainable technology.
Source: businesswire
