'The Grid': A New Internet, But on Steroids

I was surfing my Google Reader today and stumbled across a Sunday Times article titled, "Coming Soon: A Super Fast Internet" -- this peeked my interest. The intro to the article read, "The Internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds. At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalog from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds" [1]. Kind of like an Internet on steroids -- I wonder if Jose Canseco knows about this?...

The article went on to state that Cern, the particle physics center near Geneva where Tim Berners-Lee invented the web, started the grid computing project seven years ago (sorry, Jose) to support the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -- the LHC is designed to probe the origin of the universe. Apparently, scientists working on the LHC project estimated that, once it goes on line this summer, the annual data output could be 56 million CDs worth of information. I'm not sure how much data that is, but it sounds like a lot. They determined that that data output might bring the Internet to its knees; hence, the creation of the grid.

While the Internet is created with a mix of cables and routing equipment originally designed for voice transmission, the grid has been built with dedicated fiber optic cables and modern routing centers. According to the article, 55,000 servers -- with a goal of reaching 200,000 within the next two years -- have already been installed. The grid connects Cern to eleven other centers in the U.S., Canada, the Far East, and Europe.

A simple Google search turns up a ton of information on this subject. Obviously, this is new to me, but it's not really new. For a few quick references I found, check out the below links:

-Father of the Grid
-Grid Computing (Wikipedia)
-Open Grid Forum

The notion of the grid interested me because of its potential to alter how we interact with the Internet. While the grid, as designed by the folks at Cern, has a specific mission to help process LHC data, and is not expected to be available to the public, its pioneering capabilities and technologies could influence a new Internet. After all, isn't that how we got to where we are today with the Internet? David Britton, a leading figure on the grid project, summed up the potential by stating, "With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine" [1]. Can you say Web 3.0?...

For some reason when I first read the Sunday Times article my first thought was The Matrix. Not sure why -- maybe it was the whole grid/matrix similarity... I don't know, in any event, it has nothing to do with the grid but I thought I would through The Matrix trailer in for your enjoyment...

References:
1. Jonathan Leake (2008-08-06). Coming Soon: Superfast Internet