Cloud computing to power US Census in future

In an effort to cut costs and keep up with the times, the The US Census Bureau has announced that it will utilize cloud computing in its future operations. Since each census takes 10 years to plan, the new technology won’t be used in 2010, but instead for data processing and analysis as well as administrative functions later.

The bureau hopes it can use the savings provided by cloud computing to make up for budget cuts. Counting more than 300 million people isn’t cheap. This year, the Census will hire 1.4 million temporary workers and sets up 500 offices.