Google Reveals Top-Secret Data Centres Powering The World's Largest Search Engine

Google has released pictures offering a rare glimpse inside its secretive but colourful data centres.
Until now, the search engine heavyweight has only allowed a handful of employees access to its eight buildings around the world.
But these images, taken by photographer Connie Zhou, offer ann insight into the technology that powers billions of web searches, YouTube clicks and Gmail conversations every day.
The data centres - or 'server farms' - which house the equipment are so vast, employees have bicycles to get around.
Google has uploaded the images to a new website called Where The Internet Lives.
It has also added the corridors of its complex in Lenoir, North Carolina, to its Street View pages.
In a blog post, Urs Hölzle, the company's senior vice president for technical infrastructure, said: "Very few people have stepped inside Google's data centres, and for good reason.
"Our first priority is the privacy and security of your data, and we go to great lengths to protect it, keeping our sites under close guard.
"Fourteen years ago, back when Google was a student research project, Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin] powered their new search engine using a few cheap, off-the-shelf servers stacked in creative ways.
"We've grown a bit since then."

On Where the Internet lives, our new site featuring beautiful photographs by Connie Zhou, you’ll get a never-before-seen look at the technology, the people and the places that keep Google running

Photos released by the internet giant reveal the heart of Google's operations. The data centres are a maze of coridoors filled with a complicated web of cables, pipes and servers

Google employees are also pictured at work, and it is revealed that engineers even have bicycles to navigate the vast warehouses

Its seven data centres are located across the United States, while both Belgium and Finland also host a centre each

A collection of switches and routers that keep Google's data centers in contact. The fiber optic networks connecting sites can run at speeds that are more than 200,000 times faster than a typical home Internet connection

The company revealed that thousands of feet of pipe line line the inside of the data centres. We paint them bright colours not only because it's fun, but also to designate which one is which

While we’ve shared many of our designs and best practices, and we’ve been publishing our efficiency data since 2008, only a small set of employees have access to the server floor itself

This antenna receives signals for Google's Access Services unit and Google Fiber's TV service

Associate Facilities Manager Jeff Hajer burns some wire in a fabrication area at the Lenoir center