(Singularity Hub: Santa Clara, CA) -- Last week, a few miles off the northern coast of Scotland, a cylinder the size of a shipping container was carefully lowered to the bottom of the ocean floor. Sounds like a clever (if complex) way to bury evidence, or treasure, or something similarly mysterious.

But what’s actually inside the undersea capsule is 864 Microsoft servers. The contents themselves, then, aren’t all that enticing—but the details of this incredible project from one of the world’s biggest tech companies are.

Project Natick, a name Microsoft says has no special significance, completed its first phase in November 2015, after a similar vessel was deployed in the Pacific off the U.S. coast. Phase 1 tested the concept of subsea data centers, and the company was able to operate the “lights out” data center remotely and efficiently for extended periods of time.

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