Google has been studying quantum
computing and neural networks, determining whether engineers can make the technology available to cloud services via public APIs. The idea is to make a variety of computational features available
through cloud systems, said Vint Cerf during Google's Cloud Next conference Wednesday. Cerf has been credited as one of the "fathers" of the Internet.
A key element, he said, is realizing
there are multiple clouds as well as the ability to move the data easily from one to another, and the importance of the ability to do computations in one cloud and match it with computations in
another.
It's difficult to say how many clouds will become available, said Cerf during the fireside chat moderated by Quentin Hardy, formerly of The New York Times Co. Cerf said companies will
want to run "cloudlets" that interact with major clouds, keeping some data on their end.
In my opinion, the ability to cross cloud systems will also strengthen the ability to search across
cloud systems, making it one massive network.
The protocols for doing this are not quite developed, Cerf said, comparing it with the days before the Internet when the industry connected
computers from IBM, Western Digital and Hewlett-Packard but not the networks. He said this is where an "inner cloud" might emerge to connect multiple clouds.
The ability to continuously
monitor data, do computations, gather data, and conduct analysis will make a big difference in people's lives. If you're monitoring your body all the time you can see the change, he said, but if you
only look at the data when you're sick it's difficult to benchmark it against a baseline.
That thought process also easily equates to the campaigns run by advertisers. It helps companies
understand what's happening from day to day, hour to hour, or minute to minute in real-time.
"In some of our advertising mechanisms, we know in real-time how much people spend on a particular
ad and can stop showing it when it runs out of the limit users set, but that only works if you have real-time computation of billing."
Cerf also talked about the accuracy and quality of the
data, and in some cases the integrity of the data -- and if not protected properly, how people who want to mess with the data could conceivably "monkey" with it.
"There are gotchas in the
infrastructure that we will have to work hard to protect," Cerf said.
Cloud computing is creating new business models, similar to the way mobile phones did. Marc Andreessen, co-founder
of Netscape and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, also joined the fireside chat. He has recently seen a lot of businesses moving into Silicon Valley to learn
about cloud computing. "We have also seen a new rise of startups using these technologies," he said, such as an Uber modeling the taxi business or Airbnb modeling the hotel industry.