IBM and Google have created their mega-cloud that is gaining a lot of converts within the research community. In 2007, IBM and Google announced a joint university initiative to help computer science students gain the skills they need to build cloud applications. Now, the National Science Foundation is using the same infrastructure and open source methods to award Cluster Exploratory (CluE) grants to universities around the U.S. The National Science Foundation announced it has awarded nearly $5 million in grants to 14 universities through CluE to participate in the IBM/Google Cloud Computing University Initiative. The universities will run a wide range of advanced projects and explore innovative research ideas in data-intensive computing, including advancements in image processing, comparative studies of large-scale data analysis, studies and improvements to the Internet, and human genome sequencing, among others, using software and services on the IBM/Google cloud infrastructure.

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