It would seem that the king of the Internet might have plans of becoming king of the seas. Google has filed a patent for what is being called a “water-based data center,” which means they would be putting many of their servers and network centers on ships and sending them out to sea.
This would allow Google to have their servers all around the world and have their services a lot closer to many places that are still without servers. Many people all around the world would get data at a much faster rate. Now, I know this might sound a little crazy and to tell the truth, it sounded crazy to me at first. The more I got to read about it though, the more it sounded like a cool idea.
Not only is Google thinking about moving to the seas, but they have also come up with a way to cut cost and maybe become the most environmentally friendly company of the 21st century. In the patent that was filed, it shows a system that would generate power just by the water hitting the side of the ships the servers are on. I am sure there is a lot more to it than that, and it is a very cool idea.
On top of all the power that would be saved, the cooling of the servers would also be a lot easier with all of that cold ocean water around, but this plan does not come without its draw backs. If Google were to do this, they would be putting themselves out in international waters. This means they would not be protected by the U.S. or any other nation.
There is also the means of staying connected to the web while at sea, since being linked to satellites is still too slow for most practical uses. I believe their best bet would be to stay connected by running wires from the anchored ship to the land, but even that comes with a lot of maintenance. All in all it should be fun to see what comes of this, and most of all, see if any other companies start to move out to the seas as well.
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