Case Study: Columbia University accelerates climate science research with Google Cloud and Google for Education

Columbia University builds climate science research on Google for Education with $100K in Google Cloud credits

Columbia University faced a challenge in climate science research, where researchers were drowning in massive, complex datasets. Existing systems could not handle the high-resolution three-dimensional data, preventing scientists from iterating quickly on their analyses. Google for Education, through Google Cloud, provided a solution to this data management crisis.

The solution involved deploying the Pangeo open-source platform on Google Cloud, utilizing Google Cloud Storage and Google Kubernetes Engine. This provided a scalable, cost-effective infrastructure for parallel computation. The results included a successful soft launch with hundreds of users, 10,000 hours of compute, and 100 terabytes of stored data. Google for Education's cloud solution enabled major scientific discoveries by allowing researchers to ask new questions of their data and work more efficiently, all with net-zero carbon emissions due to Google's renewable energy matching.

Columbia University