Microsoft to dump it's computers into the sea.

[Anomalocaris]

I'm a whole lot more concerned about environmental impact than feasibility.

Yeah that was my worry as well.

Some of them are going to leak in big storms that are more likely given climate change. The sea is a corrosive and hostile environment at the best of times.

Saying that, the casing will need to be brought up again if only to replace all the computers once they become obsolete.

And saying that it will only increase the water temperature by a millionth of a degree is disingenuous because the whole point of the experiment is to see if it can scale up.

These capsules will probably not be place in the tidal zone or in unprotected depths subject to wave action.  I don’t think protecting the capsules from storms will be a challenge.   The only thing that will be exposed to storms will be the power and data cables coming up.  But we’ve had telecommunication and underwater power cables for decades.  They seldom fail due to storm.

Some may become damaged and may leak, but there is no reason why they will need to contain significant amounts toxic gas or liquid. So if they leak they flood and the computer inside is destroyed.  But nothing particularly harmful will come out.   Encapsulate electronic equipment for long duration underwater use is also very common place in telecommunication, petroleum, and naval applications and has been since 1950s.  No real serious concerns or known instances of diseaster.

Given the volume of surface water and air, our most vainglorious attempt to heat them up to any significant degree by burning fuels in our reach would amount to nothing for the foreseeable horizon.   The concern is always how human activity can indirectly cause the sun to heat the air and ocean more effectively.   Because these capsules need not be actively cooled, they will actually release less heat in total the a facility on land that must consume power to cool itself.

The total power consumed by data centers to cool electronics is much larger than one might imagine. Here in San Francisco Bay Area, data center power consumption represents up to a third of total electric load for many of the municipalities, and exceed the residential and commercial load. A single data center consumes as much power as a typical mixed city of 20000-30000 people.