Dallas Startup Mousterian Bets on Floating Data Centers to Dodge Texas Water Wars
A Dallas-based startup, Mousterian, is developing floating data centers to address significant water consumption issues in Texas. They've signed an engineering contract with Samsung Heavy Industries for co-designing vessels that use non-evaporative cooling. This initiative comes as North Texas faces substantial water concerns related to the data center industry, prompting a state-level moratorium from Governor Greg Abbott and the scrapping of another project due to water concerns.
A Dallas-based startup named Mousterian, founded in 2025, is proposing floating data centers as a solution to the significant water consumption issues plaguing the data center industry, particularly in North Texas. The company, co-founded by CEO Min Suh, Chase Ott-Wick, and Gabe Andrews, has secured an engineering contract with South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries. This partnership will focus on co-designing a fleet of floating data center vessels, each expected to provide 50 megawatts of IT capacity and occupy approximately one acre. Samsung Heavy Industries will handle manufacturing in South Korea, with Mousterian completing the internal equipment likely in Texas or Louisiana.
Mousterian's innovative design emphasizes non-evaporative bulk cooling systems that consume no potable water and produce zero process discharge. These units are designed to operate silently in deep river harbors or shipping channels, ideally near existing power plants, utilizing the surrounding water in a closed-loop system rather than municipal supplies. The company currently has about six project sites in development, including a hybrid campus in Houston and a large-scale floating campus planned for the San Jose, California, area.
This development comes amid a data center boom that is straining North Texas's infrastructure, where 96% of surveyed cities and counties cited water supply as their top infrastructure concern, and 93% listed high water consumption as a primary environmental worry, according to the North Central Texas Council of Governments. The Dallas-Fort Worth region is recognized as a leading data center market. In response to these challenges, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has imposed a moratorium requiring an audit of pending data center projects, specifically seeking details on cooling systems and water impact. Separately, a data center project near Cedar Creek Lake was scrapped due to expected high water usage.
Mousterian is not alone in exploring water-based data center solutions; Nautilus Data Technologies has operated a floating data center in Stockton, California, since 2021, with San Joaquin County as an anchor tenant. The industry globally is seeking alternatives to traditional land-based cooling, with concepts ranging from underwater facilities by Microsoft and China to mine-based and even space-based data centers, all reflecting a growing urgency to address resource constraints.