Google Joins Facebook's Open Compute Project to Revolutionise Data Centres

Five years ago, Facebook started leading an effort called the "Open Compute Project". Data centres power the internet. They are the nervous system that allows all kinds of services to run - including Facebook.

"Today, Google joined the 'Open Compute Project'. Google has always built some of the best infrastructure in the industry, so this is strong symbolic move that our open model of development is the best way forward for everyone," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Thursday.

"Until five years ago, the largest technology companies all designed their data centres and computing infrastructure in secret. They viewed this technology as a competitive advantage to beat others in the industry," he added.

Facebook realised that if it opened up its designs and shared its progress with the industry, the world will make faster progress together.

"By working together, we'd produce more efficient designs that would save energy, protect the environment and build better infrastructure for our community," the 31-year-old Facebook founder posted.

It has worked. So far, we've saved billions of dollars in energy and efficiency improvements. "Open Compute now brings together hundreds of companies and thousands of engineers to make progress together even faster," he noted.

According to wired.com, Google was the first company to rethink data centre design for the modern age.

"With the 'Open Compute Project', Facebook aimed to create a whole community of companies that would freely share their data centre designs, hoping to accelerate the evolution of Internet hardware and, thanks to the economies of scale, drive down the cost of this hardware," the report added.

According to Zuckerberg, over the next decade, they are going to build experiences that rely more on technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR).

"These will require a lot more computing power, and through efforts like Open Compute Project, we're developing a global infrastructure to enable everyone to enjoy them," he said.