Google has become over the years a part more and more important of our online lives, at first as a search engine then with other services what do their data center physically look like, where there are the equipment that make them work?

Google has 12 data centers, 8 in use and another 4 under construction, around the world. For security reasons, very few people were allowed to enter them and for years the company hadn’t even acknowledged their existence. On the other hand, the many thousands of servers used in those data center process confidential information, from search results to Gmail e-mails and of course the data of all users who have a Google profile.

These data centers obviously consume enormous amounts of energy, produced in the various ways available in the area. Google is trying to improve the efficiency of power management in various ways, by both improving the way in which it’s used and every time it’s possible by adopting a renewable energy source.

For example, the air conditioning systems have been replaced with water-cooling systems and together with some other measures have resulted in a considerable power saving. Regarding the sources used for the production of the energy used, currently 35% comes from renewable sources but the company aims to reach 100%.

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Now something has changed in the secrecy kept by Google and now the company have created a section of its web site titled “Where the Internet Lives” where you can find a gallery of photographs taken by Connie Zhou of its various data centers. Those photos show the servers, the systems used for their cooling and also some of the people who work for this technology giant.

You can also take a virtual tour of the data center in Lenoir, North Carolina, thanks to the Street View service. Once past the gate, you can find servers floors and the infrastructure used to cool them.

In conclusion, Google announced that in the next few days several articles will be published on the Google Green Blog that will provide more details on the measures the company has adopted to manage the use of electricity in a more and more efficient way.