Sam Mendel

Sam Mendel
Occupation	CEO and co-founder of NetworkOcean
Known for	Co-founding NetworkOcean, an underwater data center company

Sam Mendel is an American entrepreneur and data scientist who is the CEO and co-founder of NetworkOcean, a company that designs, builds, and operates underwater data centers. NetworkOcean participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch and is based in San Francisco, California.

Career

Prior to founding NetworkOcean, Mendel accumulated over 12 years of experience as a lead data scientist, specializing in machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and predictive analytics. He has led cross-functional teams on projects for companies in the technology and healthcare sectors, and has advocated for ethical AI practices. His technical background includes Python, R, TensorFlow, PyTorch, cloud platforms such as AWS and Azure, and big data technologies including Spark and Hadoop.

Before NetworkOcean, Mendel founded CreatorCrew and CASHU, and co-founded Rant. He studied at Babson College and Olin College of Engineering. Mendel has been a longtime collaborator with co-founder Eric Kim, with the two having known each other since high school.

NetworkOcean

NetworkOcean builds and operates underwater data center capsules and floating data center barges. The company's core premise is that submerging data center infrastructure in seawater allows for natural cooling, which can reduce power usage by up to 40% compared to traditional land-based data centers while eliminating freshwater consumption. The company claims a deployment time of approximately four months for its facilities, which are scalable to over 200 MW.

As of late 2024, NetworkOcean was testing a data center capsule underwater in San Francisco Bay. The company planned to sink a 500 kW capsule into the bay as part of a technology demonstration. The project attracted media attention, with coverage in Wired, Gizmodo, and Data Center Dynamics, in part due to questions raised by California regulators and environmental researchers about potential effects on local marine wildlife. Multiple California regulatory agencies indicated they had not been previously contacted about the project at the time of the initial reporting.

NetworkOcean is classified within the artificial intelligence, hard tech, hardware, cloud computing, and climate technology sectors. The company raised pre-seed funding from investors, though specific amounts have not been publicly disclosed.