A Counter-Narrative—Abolishing the Data CentreGabriele Clarelli, Ellen Stettler, Laurin Fravi, and Giovanni Paolo Valota
Data is often viewed as immaterial and opaque, supported by vocabulary such as “the cloud.” While narratives of infinite growth echo from Silicon Valley, this project investigates the material physical infrastructure that sustains the flow of data: the fibre optic backbone network and its infrastructural pieces, from microchip to submarine cable. The research follows the imperial and colonial paths of the digital infrastructure. It further focuses on ETH Zurich’s Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), and how it positions itself within the geographies of AI that are built around supercomputers and superclusters. In the final part, the project tries to sketch a response to these contemporary geographies by presenting a different approach to technology.