• Times Online, Tuesday, September 16, 2008 11:02 AM

Google is pondering whether to take the cloud to the high seas, according to a recent patent filing. The Web giant apparently wants to deploy so-called "water-based data centers" that would store information for its search engine and other services on barges located up to seven miles offshore. The data centers would use wave energy to power and cool their computers, reducing the company's costs. Their offshore status also means that Google would no longer need to pay property taxes.

According to the patent application, "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." To be sure, it's a green solution to a not so very green problem: supercomputers housed in data centers use massive amounts of electricity to ensure they do not overheat. In fact, according to the London Times, data centers consumed 1% of the world's electricity in 2005; you can imagine that number is larger now. By 2020, McKinsey, a consultancy, reckons that the carbon footprint of the Internet will be larger than that of air travel.

Google wouldn't say when it plans to launch the barges. "We file patent applications on a variety of ideas. Some of those ideas later mature into real products, services or infrastructure, some don't," a company representative said.

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