In 2007, Google applied for a patent for a water-borne data center, which was granted two years later in 2009.  The patent describes the following: “a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units.”

Google’s patent, which made headlines at the time, was quickly forgotten about. But now, it looks like the search engine giant is finally putting the patent to work as residents in Treasure Island, a man-made landform in San Francisco, report of a secret project that’s well underway.

The secret project is a four-storey structure made up of cargo containers set atop a floating barge.

Though Google has yet to address questions regarding the floating secret project, CNET unearthed evidence from “lease agreements, tracking a contact tied to the project on LinkedIn, talking to locals on Treasure Island, and consulting with experts,” and everything suggests that Google is behind it.

According to reports, a substantial project has been underway on Treasure Island since last year, when a mysterious company called By and Large LLC took a lease on Hangar 3 and the areas adjacent to it has been in various stages of lock down since then.  A phone number associated to the company redirects to an inactive line at Google.  It seems Google is quite a big fan of Pixar, as the name seems to have been taken from the fictional company that produced the lovable clean-up robot, Wall-E, Buy N Large.  Everything has been fenced in so no one can actually see what’s happening in that area, but thanks to Google’s Satellite View, we can at least see how busy things are on the inside.

Joel Egan, the principal at Cargotecture, which designs custom cargo container buildings, said the structure looks a lot like a data center. “The cutouts in the long walls of the containers, when they line up, they make hallways,” Egan said. “You could put all sorts of mainframes into the containers… It doesn’t have enough windows for an office building.”

Google may be putting its data centers in water to help keep running costs down, but that might not be the only reason.  Some sources suggest that there might be more to it – and that perhaps, this is an ingenious way for Google to dodge the NSA’s overreaching grasp.  If Google’s data center is located within international waters, then theoretically the US government will find it much more difficult to spy on US citizens using Google services.

Main image courtesy of CNET.