Google will collaborate with the NASA Ames Research Center on a range of technologies, including the convergence of biotech, infotech and nanotechnology, the search giant announced late Wednesday.
The Googleplex is just up the road from the NASA Research Park at Moffett Field, anyway. The memorandum of understanding includes plans for Google to develop up to 1 million square feet of office and lab space within the NASA facility.
The agreement is part of an initiative at Ames to create a shared-use educational and R&D campus. The plan calls for NASA to partner with local communities, academia, private industry, non-profit organizations and other government agencies.
Google and NASA will work on large-scale data management and massively distributed computing, as well as encouraging the private space industry.
In a statement, NASA Ames Center Director G. Scott Hubbard said that fruits of the collaboration could include new sensors and materials, improved analysis of engineering problems and discoveries about the Earth, life and space science from supercomputing and data mining.