Worldwide LHC Computing Grid

The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG), formerly (until 2006) the LHC Computing Grid (LCG), is an international collaborative project that consists of a grid-based <a href="/facts/Computer_network/3w5RM99p">computer network</a> infrastructure incorporating over 170 computing centers in 42 countries, as of 2017<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Worldwide_LHC_Computing_Grid&action=edit">[update]</a>. It was designed by <a href="/facts/CERN/y1gwRchm">CERN</a> to handle the prodigious volume of data produced by <a href="/facts/Large_Hadron_Collider/XWJCFSqT">Large Hadron Collider</a> (LHC) experiments.

By 2012, data from over 300 trillion (3×1014) LHC proton-proton collisions had been analyzed, and LHC collision data was being produced at approximately 25 <a href="/facts/Petabyte/BNHUp9Qq">petabytes</a> per year. As of  2017<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Worldwide_LHC_Computing_Grid&action=edit">[update]</a> the LHC Computing Grid is the world's largest <a href="/facts/Grid_computing/2GQhzN5l">computing grid</a> comprising over 170 computing facilities in a <a href="/facts/Distributed_computing/o5nyhqTF">worldwide network</a> across 42 countries scattered around the world that produce a massive distributed computing infrastructure with about 1,000,000 CPU cores, providing more than 10,000 physicists around the world with near real-time access to the <a href="/facts/LHC/XWJCFSqT">LHC</a> data, and the power to process it.
According to the <a href="https://home.cern/science/computing/grid">WLCG Website</a> as of 2024: "WLCG combines about 1.4 million computer cores and 1.5 exabytes of storage from over 170 sites in 42 countries [...] It runs over 2 million tasks per day and [...] global transfer rates exceeded 260 GB/s." Indicating substantial upgrades to WLCG over time beyond its initial release.

Worldwide LHC Computing Grid open-in-new

Worldwide LHC Computing Grid