Mousterian designs floating data centers to bypass water constraints
- A Dallas-based startup is designing a fleet of floating data centers to bypass municipal water constraints and avoid the public backlash that has stalled traditional land-based computing facilities...
- Mousterian's floating units are engineered to sit in deep river harbors or shipping channels adjacent to existing power generation assets.
- "We like to think, 'If we are going to build a data center, we're trying to do it in the most sustainable way possible,'" said Min Suh, CEO...
A Dallas-based startup is designing a fleet of floating data centers to bypass municipal water constraints and avoid the public backlash that has stalled traditional land-based computing facilities across Texas. Mousterian signed an engineering contract on July 22, 2026, with South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries to co-design the vessels, according to reporting from The Dallas Morning News. Each floating data center vessel is intended to deliver about 50 megawatts of critical IT capacity while occupying roughly one acre of footprint.
Closed-Loop Cooling in Shipping Channels
Mousterian’s floating units are engineered to sit in deep river harbors or shipping channels adjacent to existing power generation assets. The facilities use the surrounding body of water as part of a closed-loop cooling system that avoids municipal water supplies entirely. The bulk cooling system is non-evaporative, consuming no potable water and returning zero process discharge to the waterway.
“We like to think, ‘If we are going to build a data center, we’re trying to do it in the most sustainable way possible,'” said Min Suh, CEO and co-founder of Mousterian. Suh founded the company in 2025 alongside Chase Ott-Wick and Gabe Andrews. The startup currently has about six project sites in various stages of development, including a hybrid floating and land-based campus next to a power plant in Houston and a large-scale floating campus planned for the San Jose, California area.
Infrastructure Strain and Regulatory Pressure in North Texas
The venture arrives as data center construction fuels intense political friction across Texas. The United States hosts more than 4,000 data centers, including over 1,000 hyperscalers, with major installations clustered in Texas such as the Stargate project in Abilene and the Frontier project in Shackelford County. Cushman and Wakefield ranked Dallas-Fort Worth as the top primary data center market in the Americas, and Dallas ranked as the number one primary data center market in the world in the firm’s 2026 comparison.
However, that rapid expansion has triggered public resistance over massive electricity and water consumption. A survey by the North Central Texas Council of Governments shows that 96% of surveyed local governments named water supply as their top infrastructure worry, while 93% cited high water consumption as their primary environmental concern. State officials have responded with tighter oversight, including a moratorium from Gov. Greg Abbott mandating audits of pending data center projects and their impact on local water supplies.
Global Precedents in Alternative Siting
Mousterian’s approach mirrors a small but growing international shift toward unconventional data center locations designed to mitigate environmental footprints. In 2021, California-based Nautilus Data Technologies launched the world’s first floating data center atop a refurbished barge in the San Joaquin River at the Port of Stockton, utilizing a river-water cooling intake system. Other international projects include a wind-powered underwater data center off the coast of Shanghai and a Norwegian complex built inside an abandoned mine utilizing fjord seawater.
Samsung Heavy Industries will manufacture Mousterian’s vessels in South Korea, while Mousterian handles final outfitting in Texas or Louisiana and designs the internal equipment. By building the facilities off-site, fabrication can proceed concurrently with site work, according to company statements.