Samsung Heavy Industries and Dallas-based Mousterian Corporation have signed an engineering contract for their first floating datacentre project, to be moored beside a power plant in Houston, Texas. The deal moves the pair's partnership from concept to active design work, with the aim of showing that waterborne data halls can bring AI and hyperscale computing capacity online faster than conventional land-based sites, while avoiding competition for scarce development land.

The contract covers joint basic design, detailed engineering and production design, paving the way for a full construction agreement, with the American Bureau of Shipping expected to classify the facilities. Each floating unit is intended to deliver 50 MW of IT capacity, using non-evaporative cooling that Mousterian says draws no potable water and discharges nothing into surrounding waterways. The plan builds on Samsung's earlier tie-up with Supermicro, targeting a first operational site by 2028, but faces a potential obstacle after Texas governor Greg Abbott this week paused approvals for datacentres seeking grid connections while regulators audit a backlog of requests exceeding 474 GW.