Page 234 - The Black Box Book

Increasing volumes of digital data and the gradual centralization of
information services, which is marketed as the ‘cloud’, negatively impacts
ecosystems and has limited benefits for many organizations. The outsourc-
ing of information technologies to cloud companies was accompanied by
unrealistic expectations. Cloud was ideal for speculative investment into
‘startups’ without their own infrastructure to achieve fast development
and quickly assess their market value. The situation of memory institutions
like archives and museums is quite different as they are setting their goals
in long time periods. Unfortunately, the digitalization of state and public
institutions often leads to large-scale repositories with generic features
and corporate design. Digital archives could easily fall under the rubric
of ‘research infrastructures’, aimed at providing services for industrial
development and competitive economy.
The immateriality of cloud was a carefully crafted illusion. Expanding
digital infrastructures and the growing amount of data are not without eco-
logical consequences that the metaphor of cloud obscures. According to
the data of IDC (International Data Corporation) , there were 500 thousand
1
data centres worldwide in 2012. In 2019 it was already 8 million, which
counts for a 16-fold increase. By energy consumption 3% globally, digital
media has surpassed the airlines’ industry, and the prediction for 2025 is
a growth to 5–6% of worldwide energy consumption. The area of server
farms goes from an average of 1000 square meters to 12 hectares, with
energy consumption up to 100 megawatts. The building of server housing
facilities, equipped with cooling systems and power generators, consumes
large quantities of construction material even when using renewable en-
ergy. Over the course of its lifetime the average smartphone generates
33 times more energy consumption in operations in datacenters than in
its own use. The energy mix in the power grids still contains a significant
part coming from coal and gas. The underlying infrastructure, as well
as transport and parking, severely damages agricultural soil and natural
landscapes, producing extraordinary material and energy demands that
have never existed before. We should visualise the reality of smoking
factories behind our websites and mobile applications.

1 IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server and Network infrastructure trackers.
IDC 2008–2019. Retrieved from https://www.idc.com/prodserv/subser-
vices.jsp

Figure 1: Zavala, K. & Odendaal, A. (2020). Algorithms of Late Capitalism zine #3.
The project reflects socio-cultural critique of tech, surveillance or AI. Retrieved from
https://algorithmsoflatecapitalism.tumblr.com/zines
234 235