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Otto Kässi’s presentation at the Weizenbaum Institute: Regulation is changing data centre geography
Abstract: We study whether national laws limiting cross-border personal-data transfers reshape where computation occurs. We combine a country–year panel of data-centre openings in 158 countries with a new classification of national transfer regimes, and estimate event studies around the first adoption of GDPR-level rules. The response is concentrated in countries with large compliance-exposed markets. Openings…
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Vili Lehdonvirta’s 2026 keynote talks on technological sovereignty
Head of DIESL Vili Lehdonvirta has had a busy few months speaking at international conferences, with talks delivered and more lined up on the geography of cloud, AI and digital sovereignty. Below is a selection of his engagements, both recent and upcoming. ACM MobiSys 2026, Cambridge (21-25 June)Vili Lehdonvirta opened proceedings with a keynote titled…
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DIESL at SASE 2026 Conference in Bordeaux
DIESL members Vili Lehdonvirta, Kaarlo Liukkonen, Kunhan Li, Stefka Schmid, and Markus Holmgren recently participated in the annual conference of The Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), held this year in Bordeaux. The event brought together scholars of socioeconomics and political economy and also paid special attention to digital economies in a post globalisation…
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DIESL Annual Seminar 2026 — Oxford
The Digital Economic Security Lab (DIESL) held its Annual Seminar on 14–15 April 2026 at the Oxford Internet Institute, in Oxford, UK. The two-day event brought together DIESL researchers from Oxford, Aalto, and partner universities, featuring presentations on the political geography of data, digital dependence in public sector digital infrastructure, the politics of digital sovereignty,…
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Digital Economic Security Seminar – Spring 2026
Organisers/Hosts: Vili Lehdonvirta, Philipp Riederle 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. Trinity Term 2026 About the Oxford–Aalto Digital Economic Security Seminar Today’s economies are critically dependent…
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EERO LINDBOHM AND JOHAN VAN DER MEER JOIN DIESL
In March, Eero Lindbohm and Johan van der Meer joined DIESL as master thesis workers. Eero is a student of Aalto’s Master programme in Information Networks. His thesis deals with the analysis and mitigation of risks to “sovereign” cloud solutions. Johan is a student of Aalto’s Computer, Communication and Information Sciences Master programme. At DIESL,…
Digital Economic Security Lab
Professor Vili Lehdonvirta
Aalto University and University of Oxford