Google Releases Never-Before-Seen Images of Its Data Centers

Written by Vanessa Quirk
Published on October 17, 2012

If you’ve never heard of a Data Center before, there’s a reason. Despite the fact that data centers are “Giant, whirring, power-guzzling behemoths of data storage – made of cables, servers, routers, tubes, coolers, and wires,” they’re often hidden far away, where their energy-guzzling is more efficient (and way less less obvious).

Indeed, largely because of their gargantuan energy requirements and high-tech secrets, Data Centers have been shrouded in mystery since their beginnings. This is particularly true in Google’s case. When Andrew Blum, author of Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, visited Google’s Data Center in The Dalles, Oregon, he said it was like “ a prison,” and couldn’t even get past the cafeteria. Nary a peek has been seen of a Google Data Center.

Until now, that is. Google just launched a new website, Where the Internet Lives, which features never-before-seen images of eight of Google’s 9 data centers, the places the “physical internet” calls home.

Check out the images of these never-before-seen Data Centers, after the break…

Google didn’t share with us why they’re choosing to go transparent now (we’re guessing Facebook’s decision to openly tout their Data Centers’ design & energy-efficiency might have something to do with it), but they did alert us to some of their centers’ more ecologically note-worthy features.

According to Google, their facilities, which must process 3 billion search queries a day and 72 hours of YouTube videos every minute, are “among the most energy efficient in the world,” “using half the energy of a typical data center.”

Google’s Data Center in Hamina, Finland, for example, with an Alvar Aalto-designed machine hall, uses a cutting-edge cooling system, utilizing sea water from the Bay of Finland.

Scroll on for images of Hamina and other Google Data Centers – and see them all at Google’s new site: Where the Internet Lives.

The Dalles, Oregon