Google Becoming the World's Computer

Oh what a wonderful web article I've found, Google and the Wisdom of Clouds.

What is Google's cloud? It's a network made of hundreds of thousands, or by some estimates 1 million, cheap servers, each not much more powerful than the PCs we have in our homes. It stores staggering amounts of data, including numerous copies of the World Wide Web. This makes search faster, helping ferret out answers to billions of queries in a fraction of a second. Unlike many traditional supercomputers, Google's system never ages. When its individual pieces die, usually after about three years, engineers pluck them out and replace them with new, faster boxes. This means the cloud regenerates as it grows, almost like a living thing.

The Machine Is Coming To Life!!!

It gets even better!

In the process Google could become, in a sense, the world's primary computer.

See, more and more people and companies and any other number of legal fictions are turning to Google to process the brunt of their data. Whether you're simply a Gmail user or the administrator of a large university's network who turns to Google for help crunching numbers for the Physics Dept's mad nuclear experiments, you're entrusting important digital data on computer(s) other than your own. People trust Google. So do companies. So do universities. Kinda scary, doncha think? Kinda awe-inspiring, too...IMHO.

I could quote all sorts of lines from that BusinessWeek Google article. The article is cyberpunk-come-true.