The Large Hadron Collider and Grid computing

We present a brief history of the beginnings, development and achievements of the worldwide Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid (wLCG). The wLCG is a huge international endeavour, which is itself embedded within, and directly influences, a much broader computing and information technology landscape. It is often impossible to identify true cause and effect, and they may appear very different from the different perspectives (e.g. information technology industry or academic researcher). This account is no different. It represents a personal view of the developments over the last two decades and is therefore inevitably biased towards those things in which the author has been personally involved