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Paper short abstract

This paper develops a capitalist critique of data centres. Drawing on the concept of cannibal capitalism, we historically and ethnographically examine data centres as key sites for understanding how capital devours and expels the very innovations it brings into being.

Paper long abstract

The data centre assemblage, composed of silicon, GPUs, CPUs, cooling technology, and human labour, has been central to the rise of high-tech computation since the 1960s to the present. Notably, it has provided off-location storage and computing power to its users at a distance. While massive buildouts of AI data centres colonise the earth, they are by far a stable entity. On the contrary, every “new” data centre from the mainframe computer to AI technology has required a complete overhaul. Our presentation reads such processes of industrial transformation through the lens of cannibal capitalism (Fraser, 2023; Jay & Conklin, 2020). “Silicon Lives” are thus entrenched in “Silicon Ghosts”, suggesting that data centre innovation and data centre collapse go hand-in-hand.

With an area focus on Germany, we study Silicon Ghosts in several forms. For instance, we look at the cannibalisation of older industries by data centres, with the example of a US hyperscaler swallowing the former industrial areas in Frankfurt. Similarly, we study how AI hyperscalers lead to the collapse of older data centres, as retrofitting existing infrastructures for new computational demands is deemed unprofitable (Brodie & Velkova, 2021; Velkova, 2023). Lastly, we turn to the afterlife of capital’s digestion, tracing how cables, coolants, and silicon chips circulate as waste.