Since the Higgs boson, if it existed, could have any mass in a very wide range, a number of very advanced facilities were eventually required for the search. These included very powerful particle accelerator and detectors (in order to create Higgs bosons and detect their decay, if possible), and processing and analysis of vast amounts of data, requiring very large worldwide computing facilities. For example, over 300 trillion (3 x 10) proton-proton collisions at the LHC were analysed in confirming the July 2012 particle's discovery, requiring construction of the so-called LHC Computing Grid, the world's largest computing grid (as of 2012) comprising over 170 computing facilities in 36 countries. Experimental techniques included examination of a wide range of possible masses (often quoted in GeV) in order to gradually narrow down the search area and rule out possible masses where the Higgs was unlikely, statistical analysis, and operation of multiple experiments and teams in order to see if the results from all were in agreement.