Google is no stranger to out of the box thinking, but what many suspect to be their latest project is WAY outside the box. There has been an over sized floating barge being constructed in the San Francisco bay for some time, and most people believe it is going to be the latest datacenter for Google. It is currently docked on Treasure Island, an artificial island formerly used by the United States Navy. In addition to the barge, there has been a lot of work going on in a large building known as Hanger 3 on the island.
There are many clues which have lead people to believe that this is Google’s handiwork, including the fact that they applied for a patent for a ‘water-based datacenter’ in 2009. In that application they said they wanted a “system that includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the computer units.”
The platform being worked on near Treasure Island seems to fit that description quite well. The barge is 250 feet long by 72 feet wide. It goes 16 feet deep, and on top is a four story building which appears to be made from shipping containers. There are 12 tall spires coming out as well which could be antennas, masts or just about anything else as well.
A large datacenter of this type could be cooled by the cold sea water, and even powered by waves and water currents. Large datacenters require massive amounts of cooling to keep the mainframes and other computers operating at proper temperatures, and having an unlimited supply of cold seawater would reduce the costs normally associated with running datacenters significantly. Any additional savings from hydroelectric power generated from the ocean would just be a further benefit.
Of course, there are some additional questions which would have to be answered, including how employees would travel to the barge and back each day, will the datacenter be mobile so it can avoid storms or other hazards, how will it transmit and receive the data, and so forth. Of course, if any company is able to overcome these types of obstacles, it is Google.
Google has not yet confirmed or denied that this is something they are working on, but all clues are pointing in that direction. Additional information about the massive project, whatever it is, is available HERE from cNet.
