OFFSHORE AI COMMONS
AI data centers consume land, freshwater, political goodwill, and grid capacity at a rate that's becoming a genuine national problem. Meanwhile, thousands of decommissioning oil and gas platforms sit in international EEZ waters doing nothing — already permitted, already built, already connected to decades of offshore operational knowledge.
The concept: convert them. Offshore AI data centers cooled by seawater, powered by co-located offshore wind and wave energy, connected to shore via buoy relay chains using microwave and laser FSO links spaced 2–5km apart. No undersea fiber required. Buoys are repairable, upgradeable, and don't require a cable ship to fix.
The policy layer is the interesting part. Establish an International AI Waters Compact — modeled on Law of the Sea — creating neutral globally-accessible compute infrastructure that no single government controls. Sovereign wealth funds, development banks, and private operators co-invest. Universities and NGOs get reserved access. The AI commons becomes infrastructure, not a product.
Why hasn't this been built: regulatory inertia, no obvious owner, and the people with the capital don't talk to the people with the platforms. Classic infrastructure gap.
