0.1 Seconds Under the Sea
Contents › Chapter 4 A Data Center in the US
The data center
Ashore in the US, then on to a huge building by a river
View in 3DA huge building without windows
The light comes ashore on the coast of Oregon. Then it runs another 290 km or so through a cable under the ground. It arrives at a windowless building next to a big river: a data center. One building can be as big as several soccer fields, and inside are endless rows of computers.
Why?Just as your phone gets warm when you use it for a long time, computers give off heat all the time. Tens of thousands of computers give off a huge amount of it. So data centers are built where it is easy to cool them (river water, cool weather) and where there is plenty of electricity.
Learn morePower lines and internet cables reach the building by several different paths, so the computers never stop. There are also batteries and generators in case the power goes out.
- Time
- 52 ms → 53 ms
Simplified route · light in glass at about 200,000 km per second
View this scene in 3D →Read more
More in the series
Times are simplified values, calculated from a simplified route (Busan → south of Japan → Pacific → Oregon, about 9,200 km) and the speed of light in glass (about 200,000 km per second). Real times vary with the carrier, the route and traffic.