Google CEO Sundar Pichai and others mourn the death of pioneering laptop engineer Luiz André Barroso

Google engineer and information center pioneer Luiz André Barroso exceeded away on September 16 at the age of fifty nine. Barroso commenced operating for Google inside the early 2000s and is credited with revolutionizing the records middle enterprise with his unconventional thoughts. Barroso become additionally an accomplished guitar player and posted writer, having recorded musical albums with legendary musicians and co-written 'The Datacenter as a Computer' with Google fellow Urs Hölzle.

Born and raised in Brazil, Barroso were given his grasp's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Rio de Janeiro and pursued his Ph.D. In Computer Engineering from the University of Southern California. He worked for Digital Equipment Corporation within the 1990s before joining Google in 2001. He changed into also a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in addition to a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Barroso's passing became mourned via Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who lauded the Brazil-born engineer for his achievements and remembered his illustrious legacy. In a publish on X (previously Twitter), Pichai hailed Barroso's contribution to the beginning of present day cloud computing and thanked him for main Google's computing infrastructure design. Pichai also stated that the aspect he's going to leave out most about Barroso is their chats about nature, song, and soccer.

Unbearably sad to lose Luiz. He was behind so many of Google's technical achievements, writing the ebook on our records centers, main the layout of our computing infrastructure, and a lot greater. He become on the pinnacle of his area, incomes ACM's highest honor in pc architecture.…

– Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) September 22, 2023

Another individual who additionally mourned Barroso's passing is his buddy and colleague, Urs Hölzle. In a heartfelt LinkedIn publish, Hölzle remembered Barroso's contribution to public fitness during the pandemic and credited him for probably saving thousands of lives by forging consensus around Bluetooth-based touch tracing. According to a Nature paper referred to through Hölzle, Barroso's efforts ought to have stored as many as 10,000 lives in the U.K. Alone.

Describing Barroso as "a lot more than a computer scientist," Hölzle mentioned his prowess with the guitar and his passion for nature photography. He also narrated tales approximately how Barroso once waited hours to seize photos of a burrowing owl, and how he simply recently completed an album with musical legends Zeca Assumpção and Sergio Reze. He additionally described Barroso as a "modest" man who done the whole lot with "greater grace and warmth than nearly anyone."

For those who never had the opportunity to realize Barroso, Pichai's and Hölzle's social media posts paint the photo of a real gentleman who turned into not only a pioneering computer scientist, but also a humble man whose skill sets went some distance past computers. According to them, Barroso changed into a dignified, humble, and self-effacing man who left a profound influence on folks who had the good fortune of understanding him closely.