HP, Intel, and Yahoo announced today the creation of a global cloud computing infrastructure to be used by researchers across the world.

Cloud computing is a computing model in which computing resources such as storage space and processing power can be remotely managed by a third party and sold to anyone at a price proportional to the amount of computing resources desired.

Huh?  Lets say you temporarily need 500 terabytes of storage and 1000 high powered computers to perform a graphics simulation quickly. Instead of buying and configuring these resources yourself you can simply rent these resources from a remote service that is connected to the internet (also known as the cloud).

Cloud computing is all the rage right now in the computing industry. Today’s announcement follows a string of similar high profile initiatives from Google, Amazon, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and others. To learn more click here or here.

In terms of the singularity, cloud computing represents a new phase in the creation of the global human mind that we call the internet. The internet can be thought of as a global repository of information that serves as an extension of the personal repository of information stored within our own brains. As man and machine race together towards the singularity this global mind serves as the universal platform for storage and retrieval of nearly all of the information and knowledge of mankind.