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P156


Cloud, infrastructure, and scale-making 
Convenors:
Jean-Christophe Plantin (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Devika Narayan (University of Bristol)
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Format:
Traditional Open Panel
Location:
NU-3B05
Sessions:
Tuesday 16 July, -, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Amsterdam

Short Abstract:

This panel uncovers the set of technical, organizational, and discursive practices and resources that technology companies (including and beyond tech giants) mobilize to make scalability possible in the context of large computing networks.

Long Abstract:

Scholarship and public debates use proxies to convey the “hyperscale” of the infrastructure that supports large tech companies e.g., billions of users, petabytes of data, or millions square feet of data centers. However, such accounts tend to essentialize large scale by presenting it as an achieved and static situation. This panel aims instead to uncover the myriad of technical, organizational, and discursive practices and resources that tech-intensive firms mobilize to make scalability possible in the context of large computing networks.

It is crucial to interrogate these scale-making practices to first, critically demystify the common trope of rapid “scaling up” as an imperative for tech companies. Second, access to scalable computing resources via cloud computing permits rapid expansion of business models and firm practices, a phenomenon that calls for closer examination.

We build upon a strong STS tradition linking scale and power in the context of infrastructure, but also emphasizing the ideological and discursive of scale and the relevance of a multiscalar study of infrastructures. We combine this perspective with an emphasis on corporate and organizational practices as we see scale-making as a techno-organizational project shaped by the imperatives of accumulation and growth.

We invite submissions that reveal a plurality of scale-making practices in cloud computing and data centers. Topics comprise (but are not limited to):

How do organizations (tech giants and beyond) reach and maintain scale?

Who maintains computing infrastructure at scale, under what status, and for whose benefit?

How do organizations manage and utilize cloud computing and data center resources?

What are the limits and social implications of hyperscalability? What happens when scale breaks or is not possible?

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Tuesday 16 July, 2024, -
Session 2 Tuesday 16 July, 2024, -
Session 3 Tuesday 16 July, 2024, -