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Data centre warfare: why Russia may have more to lose than Ukraine
Over the past week, Ukrainian drones have struck three of Yandex’s six large data centres, as well as a facility used by Sberbank. Kyiv describes the strikes as retaliation for Russian attacks on Ukrainian data centres and telecommunications sites. The outages have reached taxi apps, digital wallets, airport websites and glucose monitors. We asked what…
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Digital Economic Security Seminar – Fall 2026
Organisers/Hosts: Vili Lehdonvirta, Kaarlo Liukkonen Sessions: Tuesdays, 1–2pm (UK time), during Oxford term time, via Zoom Participation: Open to researchers and students from any university or research institution. Please apply here if you would like to join the seminar sessions. Michaelmas Term 2026 About the Digital Economic Security Seminar Today’s economies are critically dependent on…
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DIESL member Otto Kässi at APSA 2026 in Boston, USA
DIESL member Otto Kässi presented the paper “Unplugging from Weaponised Networks: Regulations’ Impacts on Data center Buildout” at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting in Boston, held on 3–6 September 2026. The paper, co-authored with Kunhan Li and Vili Lehdonvirta, was presented in the session ‘Next Steps in Network Approaches to International Relations’. The…
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DIESL at Aalto’s Designs for a Cooler Planet: Mapping Data Centre Capacity
Data centres in the EU now consume as much electricity each year as 80% of Finland’s total demand — yet most of the profits flow straight back out, into the pockets of foreign tech giants. In Aalto University’s Designs for a Cooler Planet exhibition, doctoral researcher Kaarlo Liukkonen from DIESL asks: is Europe building digital…
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Philipp Riederle wins award for research on digital platform interoperability
The “Jovana Karanović Impact Award” recognises research that combines scholarly excellence with societal relevance. Philipp’s research provides the first empirical evidence on a leading proposal for digital platform regulation. How can regulators restore user choice on dominant social media platforms? Interoperability is a leading policy proposal, particularly under the European Commission’s Digital Markets Act. Yet,…
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DIESL Panel at EISA PEC 2026 Lisbon
DIESL member Kunhan Li organised and chaired the panel “Infrastructures of Power: Materialities and Imaginaries of Tech Autonomy in a World of Weaponized Interdependence” at the 19th Pan-European Conference on International Relations (EISA PEC 2026), hosted by Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon on 1–4 September. The session paired work on the material foundations of…
Digital Economic Security Lab
Professor Vili Lehdonvirta
Aalto University and University of Oxford