Automating labour and the spatial politics of data centre technologies

Brett Neilson; Ned Rossiter

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-80327-8_4

Automating labour and the spatial politics of data centre technologies

Brett Neilson, Ned Rossiter

Western Sydney University

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference Paper › Chapter

Abstract

Data politics traffics through data centres. A primary function of data centres over the next decades will consist of supporting the transition to automated economies with the integration of artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics into processes of capital valorisation and accumulation. Stemming from a project that investigates data centres in Asia, this contribution positions the age of automation in terms of the spatial politics of data infrastructures. Singapore is renowned as a growth centre for data storage facilities in Asia. Yet the policy literature on smart nations lacks narratives that address the political and social problem of job loss precipitated by automated futures. Because data centres are themselves automated environments and provide infrastructure that enables automation in workplaces spread across geographical scales, they offer a strategic object for research on the varied implications of automation for labour. The extent to which data centres make worlds and reconfigure regions bears upon conceptualisations of sovereign power harnessed to the state. This contribution maintains that an emergent sovereign form registers in the operational logic of computational machines special to data centres.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Topologies of Digital Work: How Digitalisation and Virtualisation Shape Working Spaces and Places
Editors	Mascha Will-Zocholl, Caroline Roth-Ebner
Place of Publication	Switzerland
Publisher	Palgrave Macmillan
Pages	77-101
Number of pages	25
ISBN (Electronic)	9783030803278
ISBN (Print)	9783030803261
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80327-8_4
Publication status	Published - 2021

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This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

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Cite this

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Automating labour and the spatial politics of data centre technologies

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