Mousterian Corporation and Samsung Heavy Industries announced the signing of an engineering contract for their first moored floating data center deployment in the United States on August 3, 2026.
From framework to engineering contract
The contract marks the first definitive project agreement under the strategic cooperation framework announced by Mousterian and SHI in April 2026, moving the partnership from framework to execution on its priority project. The agreement was executed at a signing ceremony held on July 22, 2026.
Under the engineering contract, Mousterian and SHI will jointly perform the basic design, detailed engineering, and production design for purpose-built moored floating data center units, each delivering 50 megawatts of critical IT capacity, planned for deployment in Texas and other key U.S. markets.
The engineering program establishes the technical baseline for a definitive engineering, procurement, and construction contract, which the parties intend to execute upon or prior to completion of the engineering works.
Unlocking power stranded beyond land-based reach
The pilot deployment is designed to demonstrate that purpose-built floating data centers, sited adjacent to existing power generation assets, can materially compress delivery timelines for hyperscale and AI compute by unlocking generation capacity beyond the reach of conventional land-based sites.
Samsung Heavy Industries unveiled its floating data center concept at the Posidonia 2026 exhibition in June, positioning floating data centers as an alternative where sites, power, and water are constrained. The first development is planned as a multi-vessel deployment in the Houston market, operating behind the meter with no impact on ratepayers.
Supporters say these maritime units can operate alongside existing power generation, leverage surrounding water for heat rejection, and use non-evaporative cooling that requires no potable water. The design is also intended to accommodate liquid-cooled AI systems while minimizing noise levels compared to conventional data centers.
That combination addresses two of the thorniest constraints facing new AI infrastructure builds: power interconnection queues and freshwater consumption for cooling.
Who is behind the project
Mousterian Corporation is a developer of floating and water-adjacent data center infrastructure, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Samsung Heavy Industries, founded in 1974 and headquartered in Seongnam, South Korea, is one of the world’s largest shipbuilders and a leader in offshore and maritime engineering.
Under the cooperation, Mousterian leads development, site origination, tenant sourcing, and project delivery, while SHI contributes its engineering, fabrication, and delivery capabilities for floating maritime assets.
Mousterian’s leadership team includes the team behind the world’s first operational floating data center, a barge-mounted facility opened by Nautilus Data Technologies in Stockton, California, along with senior executives drawn from data center operations, infrastructure policy, and capital markets. That prior operational experience gives the partnership a track record that many competing floating data center concepts lack.
Sung-an Choi, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Samsung Heavy Industries, said floating data centers are a natural extension of the engineering, fabrication, and project delivery capabilities the company has built over five decades in offshore and maritime construction. Ahn Young-kyu, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Samsung Heavy Industries, said the floating data center model “represents a new business model that extends shipbuilding capabilities into the digital infrastructure sector.”
A broader trend in data center infrastructure
Samsung joins a growing list of companies exploring floating data centers as demand for AI infrastructure intensifies. Japanese shipping giant Mitsui O.S.K. Lines partnered with Kinetics in 2025 to develop what the companies described as the world’s first integrated floating data center platform. Kinetics is the energy transition initiative of global floating power leader Karpowership.
In April 2026, MOL also announced a separate partnership with Hitachi to develop floating data centers using converted vessels, targeting commercial deployment starting in 2027.
The SHI-Mousterian agreement arrives as the broader data center sector confronts acute capacity shortfalls. The race to deploy AI compute at scale has already pushed chip suppliers to their limits, with NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin accelerators moving directly to cloud providers as soon as they leave the fab.
Server processors are equally strained, as illustrated by AMD’s EPYC Venice launch promising over 70 percent performance gains to meet surging data center workloads. Floating platforms that can be factory-built in parallel and moored near existing generation represent a novel answer to the land and power bottlenecks slowing that buildout.
The primary announcement was made jointly from Dallas and Seongnam, South Korea, through an official press release issued August 3, 2026.
