Rooted Clouds:
Mapping AI Data Centers

This project investigates the hidden infrastructure powering artificial intelligence. Far from being weightless or abstract, AI runs on sprawling data centers that extract water, energy, and land–often at great cost to local communities and ecosystems. This project maps where these centers are being built, who is driving their expansion, and what impacts they leave behind, making visible the hidden infrastructure–and injustices–at the heart of AI.

Project Diaries

Below you can find our Project Diaries, where we share the project’s behind the scenes: the hopes, dreams, obstacles, successes, and failures we encounter along the way.

Diaries
Introducing Our New Project: Rooted Clouds 
Introducing Our New Project: Rooted Clouds 

The first Research Diary for our Rooted Clouds project, a mapping project that traces where data centers are located and what their presence means for local ecosystems and communities. From the AIPJ Team, Nicolás and Lakshmee explore why we need to root the digital cloud in its material realities and what we plan to do about it.

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