The LHC Computing Grid (LCG) was launched in 2002 and integrates thousands of computers worldwide into a global computing resource that will be used to store and analyze the huge amounts of data that will soon be produced by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

When the LHC begins operations in 2008, it will produce roughly 15 Petabytes (15 million Gigabytes) of data every year. Thousands of scientists all over the world already want to access and analyze these data!

But the LCG must do more than just store this huge amount of data: it must also analyze the data, a task that will require around 100 000 PC processors. Also, the data should be made available to thousands of scientists across the world, in a completely seamless fashion.