MapReduce is a programming model and implementation for processing large datasets across clusters of computers. It allows users to specify map and reduce functions. The map function processes input key-value pairs to generate intermediate pairs, while the reduce function combines intermediate values into final output. Google developed MapReduce to simplify distributed computing on large datasets, addressing issues like parallelization, fault tolerance, and load balancing. It works by splitting input data into blocks and assigning them to worker nodes that apply the user-defined map and reduce functions to process the data in parallel.