What the Hell Is Google Building On This Massive Barge?

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Cnet reports that Google is building something super secret—and super huge—on a barge that's floating in the San Francisco Bay. What the hell is this thing?

According to Cnet, the structure stands four stories tall and is floating on a large barge in the San Francisco Bay, just off shore from Treasure Island. It's made out of a series of shipping containers. Cnet speculates that inside these containers, Google is building a prototype for a floating data center—which makes a lot of sense, because using sea water to cool data centers could potentially save the company a bucket of money.

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Google, of course, hasn't responded to any requests for comment about the structure, but Cnet links it pretty conclusively to the company with some digging. The structure is floating on a barge that's parked next to a hanger on Treasure Island, which is leased to a shell company called By and Large LLC—which Cnet thinks belongs to Google. How they g0t there, though, is a pretty impressive bit of reporting. Be sure to check out the full report. [Cnet]

Image via James Martin/CNET

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