Yesterday it was reported in The Times that Google is toying with the idea of creating floating data centres that are powered in part by wave power, as a radical way of cutting costs. A patent application has been filed in the USA for the idea (presumably with the intention of stopping others from following suit), though the company admits that it files patent applications for a variety of inventions, not all of which are subsequently pursued.
Powering and cooling data centres is a big problem, and on the face of it seems like a clever solution. However, there is some suggestion that wave power alone, based on our current technology, could not power a large data centre and the set-up and maintenance costs are not going to be low.
In terms of avoiding property taxes, rules and regulations as suggested by The Times, there has already been some speculation that this won't wash either, if a fellow blogger at The Guardian is to be believed. Currently the barges are only intended to be anchored seven miles offshore, and according to the UN (or at least Wikipedia), they'd need to be at least 12 nautical miles from the mean lower water mark around the coast to be in international waters (and this extends to 200 miles around some countries). It looks like Google may need to do some more thinking before this idea sails ...
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