Floating Platform Offers Emergency Power and Fresh Water
A maritime technology partnership has proposed a vessel that could deliver electricity and fresh water to disaster zones while maintaining data centre operations offshore.
Optimal Transit, formed by InMar Technologies and OptiFuel Systems, announced a variant of slot online its Kraaken platform configured to supply coastal areas with power and water alongside AI compute capacity.
The Blue Economy VITAL 100MW Kraaken is designed to provide up to 40MW of electricity continuously and around 30 million litres of fresh water daily, alongside 60MW of AI-grade data centre capacity.
Mobile infrastructure for disaster response
The VITAL configuration uses the same small waterplane area twin hull architecture as the original Kraaken platform, alongside its patented Digital Ocean Thermal self-powering engine.
Jeff Kline, President of InMar Technologies, says: “When we introduced the Kraaken as a data centre platform, we presented a self-powered, zero-emission vessel designed to dedicate its full capacity to compute.
“The VITAL 100MW configuration takes the same core capabilities and asks a different question: what happens when you point some of that output directly at a coastline that doesn’t have reliable power or clean water?”
Power and water can be delivered through a quick-disconnect umbilical system, allowing the vessel to connect directly with coastal infrastructure. The system allows the vessel to disconnect and relocate if conditions deteriorate.
That mobility could be useful after hurricanes, earthquakes or other disasters where terrestrial infrastructure is damaged.
Addressing prolonged outages
Optimal Transit pointed to Puerto Rico’s Hurricane Maria in 2017 as an example of what the platform could potentially address.
The hurricane caused the longest blackout in US history, lasting approximately 11 months. All 3.3 million residents were left without power, with some communities experiencing prolonged outages as damaged infrastructure slowed recovery.
