Panthalassa, named for the ancient superocean that once covered most of the planet, unveiled the factory near the Columbia River with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The company aims to build self-piloting buoys — which it calls nodes — that generate electricity from wave motion and use it to run floating AI computation hubs at sea.

The facility occupies a vast warehouse that was once part of the Kaiser Shipyard, which produced more than 140 vessels during World War II. When fully staffed, about 50 workers will roll plate steel and use robotic welding to construct the nodes, which can then be shipped down the Columbia River for deployment in deep ocean waters.

"The first step towards a fleet begins here," said Dana Hartsig, Panthalassa's vice president of manufacturing.

Each node resembles a large white orb, bigger than a sailboat, studded with ladders and portals. Most of the structure sits below the surface: a hollow tube extends downward, lifting seawater into turbines that generate power. The full assembly can stand six stories tall, though the bulk remains underwater.

CEO Garth Sheldon-Coulson said the company's technology — which he described variously as advanced wave energy, open ocean wave energy or ocean hydro — will produce "the cheapest green electrons on the planet."

"It turns out that there's a lot of energy in the middle of the ocean," Sheldon-Coulson said in an interview at the factory. "So we said to ourselves, what would it take? What could we do to build a technology that captured that energy cheaply, reliably, that could transit out into the resource on its own?"

Panthalassa's approach differs from most ocean-energy ventures, which typically anchor devices near shore or connect them directly to electrical grids. Its unanchored nodes would use the power they generate on-site, feeding floating data centers rather than distributing electricity to land. The company argues that model avoids the carbon emissions, freshwater contamination and neighborhood disruption that have fueled a backlash against land-based data centers.

The startup has attracted significant financial backing. This spring, a group of tech investors led by billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel helped Panthalassa raise $140 million. The company sought another $225 million from venture capital groups this summer, bringing its total raised this year to more than $300 million. Industry press reports value the company at close to $2 billion.

Ocean energy has long been touted by scientists and investors as a promising renewable resource, but it has yet to produce profits at scale. Oregon State University operates an $80 million wave energy hub near Newport, and at least a dozen companies worldwide are racing to prove the business case, each with a different design.

Panthalassa began fabricating prototypes in Vancouver in 2022. The new factory represents a test of whether the company can replicate its manufacturing process globally, with the goal of developing a blueprint for similar plants around the world.

Political support has come from both Oregon and Washington, where officials have embraced the promise of marine renewable energy. For Southwest Washington, the plant offers a small but symbolic boost: about 50 manufacturing jobs in a region still shaped by its industrial past, now tied to a futuristic vision of computing at sea.