An underwater AI data center proposal has residents up in arms in Downeast Maine
Developer Louis Wolfson has proposed a 15-megawatt underwater AI data center off Eastport, Maine, powered by tidal energy and cooled by seawater. Residents, fishermen, Indigenous representatives, the city council, and the local port authority oppose the concept over potential risks to marine life, fishing, water quality, and the seafloor; Eastport has imposed a 180-day moratorium on data center development.
Louis Wolfson, a Massachusetts real estate developer, has sought a preliminary permit from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to study a proposed 15-megawatt underwater AI data center off Kendall Head in Eastport. The concept would place server modules inside a concrete structure on the seafloor, use tidal turbines for power, and connect to land with a subsea cable. Wolfson says the approach could reduce freshwater consumption, waste heat, and reliance on intermittent renewable energy sources, but he says the immediate goal is only to conduct environmental and engineering studies rather than begin construction.
Opposition has grown among Eastport residents, fishermen, the city council, the port authority, and Indigenous community members concerned about impacts on Passamaquoddy Bay, lobster grounds, marine life, noise, and possible pollution or structural failure in the region’s powerful tides. Eastport’s City Council announced a 180-day moratorium on data center development, while the group Eastport Residents for Healthy Oceans has organized against the proposal. Wolfson maintains that the study would determine whether the project is feasible, while local opponents say the bay is too environmentally and culturally important to risk.