Today’s economies are critically dependent on transnational digital infrastructures and platforms. The Digital Economic Security Lab (DIESL) maps these infrastructures, assesses countries’ and sectors’ dependence on them, and explains how they are shaped by economic and political forces. Our work informs policy making and business strategy and advances academic debates in international political economy, cybersecurity, and related fields.
Our flagship project GEOCLOUD: The Geopolitics of Cloud Computing tracks the global and sectoral reach of U.S. and Chinese cloud computing infrastructures. In other work we chart the geographic distribution and ownership of compute clusters that power AI services. We believe that transformations in digital infrastructures have far-reaching consequences, because in a digitized society computational power translates to political power.
DIESL is the name of Professor Vili Lehdonvirta’s joint research group at the Department of Computer Science, Aalto University, Finland, and the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK. It was established in 2024 with funding from the European Research Council and the Dieter Schwarz Foundation.
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NEW POLICY BRIEF: EUROPE’S USE OF CLOUD COMPUTING FOR BORDER CONTROL
A new policy piece by Stefka Schmid has been published by the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. Summary Big Tech companies provide cloud computing services to various actors worldwide, including Frontex, thereby shaping the governance of the EU’s external borders. Given that border control constitutes a safety-critical environment, the implementation of cloud computing should be
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PARTICIPATION IN AI GOVERNANCE IN MLOPS MEETUP HELSINKI
On April 7th, DIESL PhD student and team member Ana Paula Gonzalez Torres will take part in the MLOps Meetup. Ana Paula will contribute with her expertise in AI governance to the question of how to implement governance to AIOps/MLOps. The event is organised by the Helsinki MLOps Community and will take place at the
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NEW WORKING PAPER: MASTODON USER STUDY ON THE POTENTIALS AND LIMITS OF INTEROPERABILITY
A new paper titled “Does Digital Platform Interoperability Deliver on Its Expectations? Evidence from User Switching on Mastodon” by Philipp Riederle has been published on SocArXiv. Abstract Users of centralised digital platforms (e.g., X, Instagram, TikTok) have little choice but to accept incumbent providers’ conduct or forgo participation. Digital platform interoperability is widely proposed as
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NEW ARTICLE: HOW TECH GIANTS’ BUYOUTS LIMIT MARKET ENTRY OF NEW COMPANIES
A new article titled “Killers on the road of emerging start-ups—implications for market entry and venture capital financing” by Heli Koski, Otto Kässi, Fabian Braesemann has been published by Industrial and Corporate Change. Abstract The competitive effects of acquisitions made by large US-based technology companies have come under increased regulatory scrutiny over recent years because
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AN EXCEPTIONALLY LARGE PART OF FINLAND’S DIGITAL SERVICES RELY ON AMERICAN GIANTS
Dr Otto Kässi was interviewed by the Finnish online newspaper Uusi Juttu on industrial policy and geoeconomics (in Finnish; paywalled): LINK: https://www.uusijuttu.fi/juttu/s7UlWE8E-aVTH6fEX-73302
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THE NEOCOLONIALISM OF DATA CENTERS: WHO REALLY OWNS YOUR DATA? A CONVERSATION WITH OTTO KÄSSI
Dr Otto Kässi was invited to the Signaali podcast to discuss industrial policy, data capital, and geopolitics (in Finnish). LINK: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6UYjYYsJtxCBkDFbrBk96Z
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THERE IS A BATTLE FOR DATA MANAGEMENT IN THE WORLD
Dr Otto Kässi joined the Finnish national broadcaster’s morning show to discuss data sovereignty (in Finnish). LINK: https://areena.yle.fi/1-77179564
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‘It means missile defence on datacentres’: drone strikes raise doubts over Gulf as AI superpower
“If that’s the case then from now on we might perhaps see operators of prominent datacentres like AWS [Amazon Web Services] investing in air defence, similar to how shipping operators armed up against pirates,” Lehdonvirta said.