Mousterian Corporation and Samsung Heavy Industries Sign Engineering Contract for First Floating Data Center Deployment in the United States

Mousterian Corporation, Inc. ("M3"), a developer of water-adjacent data center infrastructure, and Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. ("SHI"), one of the world's largest shipbuilders and maritime engineering firms, have signed an engineering contract for their first moored floating data center ("FDC") deployment in the United States. The agreement, executed at a signing ceremony held on July 22, 2026, advances the strategic cooperation framework the two companies announced in April 2026 from a memorandum of understanding to a definitive project agreement.

Under the engineering contract, M3 and SHI will jointly perform the basic design, detailed engineering, and production design for purpose-built moored FDC units, each delivering 50 megawatts of critical IT capacity. The units are planned for deployment in Texas and other key U.S. markets, with the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) expected to serve as classification society for the project. The engineering program establishes the technical baseline for a definitive Engineering, Procurement, and Construction ("EPC") contract, which the parties intend to execute upon or prior to completion of the engineering works.

The partnership addresses a growing challenge in the data center industry: the difficulty of securing both land and power for hyperscale and AI compute facilities. By siting floating data centers adjacent to existing power generation assets, the companies aim to unlock generation capacity that has remained out of reach for conventional land-based development. Each facility employs bulk non-evaporative cooling that consumes no potable water and returns zero process discharge to the surrounding waterway, while supporting facility-scale, high-density, liquid-cooled AI compute at a very low power usage effectiveness (PUE). The design also eliminates air-cooled chillers and fans that dominate conventional data centers, resulting in a minimal noise profile for surrounding communities.

"Signing this engineering contract transitions our partnership with Samsung Heavy Industries from intent to execution and gives us a clear path to scaling factory-built critical IT capacity for AI-class facilities," said Min Suh, Chief Executive Officer of Mousterian Corporation. "We are jointly engineering the first mission-critical data center of its class to be fabricated off-site to shipyard standards. Because the facility is built in a shipyard, fabrication advances in parallel with sitework rather than after it — a schedule and scale that conventional delivery methods cannot match. And by siting these facilities alongside existing stranded baseload generation and maritime infrastructure, we reach power that land-based development cannot."

Sung-an Choi, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Samsung Heavy Industries, said, "Floating data centers are a natural extension of the engineering, fabrication, and project delivery capabilities we have built over five decades in offshore and maritime construction. Together with Mousterian, we intend to deliver floating data centers with the same rigor, quality, and schedule certainty that define our maritime track record."

The pilot deployment is designed to demonstrate that purpose-built floating data centers can materially compress delivery timelines for hyperscale and AI compute. Because the facility is fabricated in a shipyard, construction can proceed in parallel with site preparation rather than sequentially, a fundamental shift from conventional delivery methods. The engineering works build on M3's broader development platform spanning site origination, power partnerships, data center design, capital formation, and tenant relationships, combined with SHI's track record in delivering floating maritime assets at scale.

The agreement signals a growing interest in alternative data center delivery models as demand for AI compute continues to strain traditional infrastructure pipelines. Floating data centers, if successfully deployed, could offer a new pathway for operators seeking to bypass the land acquisition and grid interconnection bottlenecks that have slowed data center development across the United States.