Google looks a bit Peaky

THE ALMIGHTH GURGLE has struck again, this time buying up a programming middleware company.

However, this company is more interesting than many. Backed by Silicon Valley godfathers Sequoia and Kleiner Perkins, Peakstream is at the forefront of multi-threading platform development.

So much so, in fact, that an ATI presentation we attended at the end of last year dedicated a wedge of time to how Peakstream was going to create a middleware revolution that would see Radeons tip up everywhere as GPGPUs.

Peakstream's raison d'etre is to take standard code, then work out how best to massively thread it. This means that programmers can take advantage of parallel hardware, such as installations of AMD Stream processors, and write relatively simple code, leaving Peakstream to handle the threading.

So what does Google want with these guys? The answer is simple - access to the power. Google has massive data centre installations that power the search engine's every query, and the idea of using massively parallel processing in the form of GPGPU to create a greater data capacity per square foot of space must be incredibly appealing. However, rewriting the infamous algorithm will surely not be. Peakstream could be a genuine technology advantage for Google over its rivals.

Of course, Google does have a history of making 'out there' purchases which later appear consumer-savvy, so don't rule out a consumer product that requires the technology in some form, either. It previously bought SketchUp, a CAD company, to universal 'huh?'s - only shortly after to reveal Google Earth, which makes fine use of the technology. µ