Google World Domination step #4: "Computer Navy"

[Bounty]

Google may take its battle for global domination to the high seas with the launch of its own “computer navy”.

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

The “water-based data centres” would use wave energy to power and cool their computers, reducing Google’s 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.

In the patent application seen by The Times, Google writes: “Computing 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.”

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 world’s 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 (£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 Google’s “computer navy” was an unexpected but clever solution. Rich Miller, the author of the datacentreknowledge.com blog, said: “It’s really innovative, outside-the-box thinking.”

Google refused to say how soon its barges could set sail. The company said: “We file patent applications on a variety of ideas. Some of those ideas later mature into real products, services or infrastructure, some don’t.”

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

[General Zod]

So what happens if a hurricane hits?

[Bounty]

So what happens if a hurricane hits?

Quoth the server, 404?

[Venator]

So what happens if a hurricane hits?

This?

In seriousness, I assume they'd have land-based backups.

[Xenophobe3691]

Um...just move the ships? I didn't think that moving a supertanker would be that big of a deal...

[Admiral Valdemar]

Pretty awesome. Though I wonder how the "Google is evil!" people will react, since they're having fits over Chrome now.

[Themightytom]

So what happens if a hurricane hits?

Quoth the server, 404?

How do the servers communicate with everything else anyway? Are they REALLY going to run a cable out there or would it be a satalite feed and wouldn't taht be a huge bottleneck?

[General Zod]

How do the servers communicate with everything else anyway? Are they REALLY going to run a cable out there or would it be a satalite feed and wouldn't taht be a huge bottleneck?

You realize we already have several miles of internet cable under the ocean already right?

[lukexcom]

How do the servers communicate with everything else anyway? Are they REALLY going to run a cable out there or would it be a satalite feed and wouldn't taht be a huge bottleneck?

You realize we already have several miles of internet cable under the ocean already right?

While the ship is moored to one spot, the cables would work fine. But if the ships need to be moved significant distances, like in your hurricane scenario, then the fiber-optic cables would have to be disconnected and dropped back to the sea floor. You won't want to be dragging cable for tens if not hundreds of miles across the bottom of the sea floor while the ship is avoiding said hurricane.

The ships would have to have a device that can quickly locate the end of the fiber-optic cable, and drag it up to the surface. The closer the ships stay to shore, the easier the job is.

But really, you might as well build a bunch of land-based data centers by the shoreline of, say, New England or Seattle with wave power generators close by, and a water pump to pump in the water from the Ocean.

Unless the ability to have your data centers beyond the reach of law is important enough that it's worth spending hundreds of millions of dollars in acquiring and maintaining the ships and specialized technology to regularly locate, connect, and disconnect sea-floor fiber-optic cables, whenever the ships need to move from their stations. Not to mention the myriad of other administrative and operational costs, such as the personnel to operate the ships.

Frankly it seems to me that the overall costs to set up and run this would be too high to bother with.

[Uraniun235]

It's not like Google has to move to an all-databarge system; they could retain land-based datacenters in areas where the climate makes the databarge infeasible.

[lukexcom]

It's not like Google has to move to an all-databarge system; they could retain land-based datacenters in areas where the climate makes the databarge infeasible.

True, although then with even fewer barges, they would be losing out from economies of scale.

To compensate, spin off this concept into a subsidiary and market it as a databarge construction, operations, and maintenance service. They (edit: the customers) place their existing computer infrastructure and datacenter personnel on it, while this subsidiary takes care of everything else: barge operations, maintenance, etc.

[PeZook]

How will they be able to avoid property taxes? 7 miles is well within territorial waters

[Spyder]

How will they be able to avoid property taxes? 7 miles is well within territorial waters

The various countries that have them within their borders will be in a perpeptual state of being slightly invaded.

[Bounty]

How will they be able to avoid property taxes? 7 miles is well within territorial waters

Do you pay property taxes on boats? They're vehicles, aren't they?

[PeZook]

Do you pay property taxes on boats? They're vehicles, aren't they?

I suppose it depends on local regulations,but I'm pretty sure they will have to pay something, even if it's called "mooring fees"

[Stark]

Pretty awesome. Though I wonder how the "Google is evil!" people will react, since they're having fits over Chrome now.

People who think Google are saints are pipe-dreaming anal retentive morons.

I'm interested in the security precautions around these ships however.

[Uraniun235]

Do you pay property taxes on boats? They're vehicles, aren't they?

I suppose it depends on local regulations,but I'm pretty sure they will have to pay something, even if it's called "mooring fees"

I'm guessing that "mooring fees" (whatever the hell those are for a ship that just sits off the coast) will probably be significantly less than the property taxes on a datacenter; datacenters tend to be pretty valuable pieces of property thanks to all the electrical, HVAC, and data infrastructure that gets built into one.

[nickolay1]

The ships would have to have a device that can quickly locate the end of the fiber-optic cable, and drag it up to the surface. The closer the ships stay to shore, the easier the job is.

It is rumored that NASA spent hundreds of millions of dollars developing such a device. Apparently,they called it the "buoy."