Google goes offshore

Eugen Leitl eugen at leitl.org
Mon Sep 15 11:57:44 PDT 2008


http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article4753389.ece

Google search finds seafaring solution

Murad Ahmed, Technology Reporter

Graphic: how Google's databarges will work

Google may take its battle for global domination to the high seas with the
launch of its own bcomputer navyb.

The company is considering deploying the supercomputers necessary to operate
its internet search engines on barges anchored up to seven miles (11km)
offshore.

The bwater-based data centresb would use wave energy to power and cool their
computers, reducing Googlebs costs. Their offshore status would also mean the
company would no longer have to pay property taxes on its data centres, which
are sited across the world, including in Britain.  Related Links

In the patent application seen by The Times, Google writes: bComputing
centres are located on a ship or ships, anchored in a water body from which
energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into
electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away.b

The increasing number of data centres necessary to cope with the massive
information flows generated on popular websites has prompted companies to
look at radical ideas to reduce their running costs.

The supercomputers housed in the data centres, which can be the size of
football pitches, use massive amounts of electricity to ensure they do not
overheat. As a result the internet is not very green.

Data centres consumed 1 per cent of the worldbs electricity in 2005. By 2020
the carbon footprint of the computers that run the internet will be larger
than that of air travel, a recent study by McKinsey, a consultancy firm, and
the Uptime Institute, a think tank, predicted.

In an attempt to address the problem, Microsoft has investigated building a
data centre in the cold climes of Siberia, while in Japan the technology firm
Sun Microsystems plans to send its computers down an abandoned coal mine,
using water from the ground as a coolant. Sun said it could save $9 million
(B#5 million) of electricity costs a year and use half the power the data
centre would have required if it was at ground level.

Technology experts said Googlebs bcomputer navyb was an unexpected but clever
solution. Rich Miller, the author of the datacentreknowledge.com blog, said:
bItbs really innovative, outside-the-box thinking.b

Google refused to say how soon its barges could set sail. The company said:
bWe file patent applications on a variety of ideas. Some of those ideas later
mature into real products, services or infrastructure, some donbt.b

Concerns have been raised about whether the barges could withstand an event
such as a hurricane. Mr Miller said: bThe huge question raised by this
proposal is how to keep the barges safe.b 





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list