Google One of World’s Largest Hardware Makers

At its annual stockholder meeting, Google made sure that it got one particular issue across: The company knows hardware.

In fact, CFO Patrick Pichette speculated that Google is probably one of the world's largest hardware makers. So, if Google is so secretive about the hardware it uses in its data centers, why would the company be so suspiciously forward with this note?

Simple: Google is trying to tell investors that it is experienced enough to integrate Motorola in its corporate structure.

More than 10 years ago, when Google had less than 100 employees, the company was already in the hardware business. Instead of buying Itanium servers to power its search engine, the company said that it designed its own small Celeron systems - eventually tens of thousands of units - to scale its business back-end economically and efficiently.

An article published by Wired notes that every company that operates a sizable data center eventually considers the option to design its own servers instead of buying them from a big server maker. Purchasing the design and manufacturing service from an ODM in Asia cuts out the middle man and gets financially more attractive with scale.

Google never disclosed how many servers the company runs, but general estimates assume that the company owns about two percent of all active servers in the world. The company currently has eight operational data centers - six in the U.S., one in Belgium, one in Finland. Four more are planned to go online late this year (Ireland) and in 2013 (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan). Current estimates speculate that Google runs between 1.5 and 1.7 million servers. By the end of 2013, Google could expand its infrastructure to up to 2.8 million servers.