Inside Cern's atom-smasher number-cruncher

Many of the server racks in the datacentre are currently empty. According to Jouanigot, the main problem in expanding the current datacentre is cooling it.

Cern has plans to take part of its computing infrastructure and move it to the French side of the site, to give more space between the racks. The new centre will be built in three years, and be up and running within four. "The new centre will scale by a factor of five or 10, and add more capacity," said Jouanigot.