Google’s surveillance power depends on massive physical data infrastructure

Evidence

Google’s asymmetrical power draws on all the social sources that we have considered: its declarations, its defensive fortifications, its exploitation of law, the legacy of surveillance exceptionalism, the burdens of second-modernity individuals, and so on. But its power would not be operational without the gargantuan material infrastructure that surveillance revenues have bought. Google is the pioneer of “hyperscale,” considered to be “the largest computer network on Earth.” Hyperscale operations are found in high-volume information businesses such as telecoms and global payments firms, where data centers require millions of “virtual servers” that exponentially increase computing capabilities without requiring substantial expansion of physical space, cooling, or electrical power demands. The machine intelligence at the heart of Google’s formidable dominance is described as “80 percent infrastructure,” a system that comprises custom-built, warehouse-sized data centers spanning 15 locations and, in 2016, an estimated 2.5 million servers in four continents. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 590

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘hyperscale’ as massive virtual-server networks that scale computing without proportional physical expansion.
• SEED: The ‘80 percent infrastructure’ figure and virtual-server scaling insight could anchor an essay on how platform dominance is physically embodied, not just algorithmic.
• XREF: connects to: Data are a physical raw material requiring sensing, storage, and cleaning infrastructure. — Nick Srnicek, Platform Capitalism, 43; Google’s Street View cars secretly harvested personal Wi-Fi payload data. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 452; Google aims to weave sensing capability directly into everyday materials — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 769 (+1 more)