Today’s societies are highly reliant on digital services, but the infrastructures behind these services are undergoing a silent revolution. Data storage and computation are moving from users’ own devices and on-premises servers into hyperscale data centres operated by multinational cloud computing providers. This “shift to cloud” is a prime example concentration and servitization taking place in all parts of digital supply chains. It generates significant scale economies, decreases capital costs for firms and public sector organizations, and can improve energy efficiency and certain types of cybersecurity. But it also gives rise to new systemic risks and means that critical services may be increasingly reliant on multinational technology companies at a time when geopolitical tensions are rising, open trade policies are challenged, and states seek to weaponize and securitize technologies.
To examine these problems, Vili Lehdonvirta at the Digital Economic Security Lab (DIESL) in collaboration with Mikael Mattlin and Mikael Wigell of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) hosted a seminar on the Geoeconomics and Politics of Digital Infrastructures and Cloud in Helsinki on 3-4 December 2024. The two-day seminar brought together emerging research examining how policy makers and technology companies grapple with these tensions and contradictions, with a particular focus on the European Union and cloud and related technologies. Early-career scholars and researchers from the University of Oxford, Cambridge University, University College London, Aalto University, University of Helsinki, University of Turku, Freie Universität Berlin, King’s College London, University of Catania, and Australian National University presented findings from their ongoing work. A key takeaway was that the interaction between government policies and technology companies’ business interests is rapidly reshaping digital infrastructures and supply chains today.
Speakers:
- Filippo Blancato, University College London: The logic of the sovereign cloud. A European response to Weaponized Interdependence
- Niky Brugnatelli, University of Catania: The European Semiconductor Industry and the US-China Tech War: Between Extraterritoriality and Overcapacity
- Zoe Hawkins, Australian National University and University of Oxford: Big tech: Weaponised infrastructure or Independent Geopolitical Actors?
- Markus Holmgren, Finnish Institute of International Affairs: (Cloud-relevant) geostrategic power as a research topic
- Grzegorz Lechowski, Freie Universität Berlin: Power Dynamics in the Cloud Compute Value Chain: A Global Technological Ecosystem Perspective
- Kristo Lehtonen, Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra: EU and US Data Economies in the age of competition for digital power
- Kaarlo Liukkonen, Aalto University: Which cloud platforms are popular in which countries? Answers from job ad data
- Mikael Mattlin: When threats converge. A critical take on the weaponization narrative and where it will lead us (spoiler: to doom)
- Matteo Nebbiai, King’s College London: Strategic (de)commodification: How Data Value Chains Shape Firms’ Regulatory Preferences
- Alina Utrata, University of Oxford and Cambridge University: Is Digital Sovereignty a Spatial Concept? Using the Cloud to Put Territory in Its Place
- Boxi Wu, University of Oxford: Compute North vs. Compute South: Mapping the world’s public cloud AI compute
- Matti Ylönen, University of Helsinki: Reconceptualizing the Brussels Effect
- Junhua Zhu, University of Turku: Regulation and Standardization in the Chinese AI Ecosystem