Panthalassa has raised $140m in Series B funding to accelerate deployment of its offshore AI computing systems powered by wave energy.
The Portland, Oregon-based renewable energy and ocean technology company said the round was led by investor Peter Thiel, with participation from John Doerr and others including TIME Ventures, SciFi Ventures, Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Fortescue Ventures and Super Micro Computer.
The company will use the funding to complete a pilot manufacturing facility near Portland and expand deployment of its Ocean-3 series nodes, autonomous offshore systems designed to generate electricity from ocean waves and use it directly to run AI inference computing at sea.
“There are three sources of energy on the planet with tens of terawatts of new capacity potential: solar, nuclear, and the open ocean,” said Garth Sheldon-Coulson, co-founder and chief executive of Panthalassa. “We’ve built a technology platform that operates in the planet’s most energy-dense wave regions, far from shore, and turns that resource into reliable clean power. We’re now ready to build factories, deploy fleets, and provide a sustainable new source of energy for humanity.”
Panthalassa’s floating nodes are designed to operate in offshore wave zones where wave energy resources are strongest. The systems generate electricity continuously from ocean motion and use the power onboard rather than transmitting it back to shore-based grids.
The company said this approach enables offshore AI computing while avoiding some of the constraints facing terrestrial data centres, including grid limitations, cooling water shortages and permitting delays. Waste heat from computing systems is managed using seawater cooling surrounding the nodes.
Panthalassa has spent the past decade developing wave energy conversion, propulsion, autonomy and offshore computing technologies. Its Ocean-1, Ocean-2 and Wavehopper prototypes were tested at sea between 2021 and 2024.
The company plans to deploy its Ocean-3 pilot node series in the northern Pacific Ocean in 2026 ahead of targeted commercial deployments in 2027.
“The future demands more compute than we can imagine,” said Thiel. “Extra-terrestrial solutions are no longer science fiction. Panthalassa has opened the ocean frontier.”
Doerr said the company’s offshore wave energy platform could play a significant role in future energy supply.
“Panthalassa’s autonomous wave power system is a game changer in addressing global energy needs and clean power generation,” he said. “It is a triple win: workers benefit, communities benefit, and we gain a strategic asset that strengthens American technological leadership.”
