About this episode

Dr. Ali Fard discusses his book 'Grounding the Cloud', which explores the material foundations of cloud computing and its impact on urban environments.

Since the 1990s, technologists have promoted a vision of the “cloud” as a shapeless and intangible entity. Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow of Data (University of Minnesota Press, 2026) by Dr. Ali Fard peers through this hazy façade to reveal the earthly material foundations of global computing and data extraction. Tracing the historical and technological development of the cloud computing paradigm, Dr. Fard exposes an ever-evolving project in which ideologies, economic models, and marketing images collude to shape our shared urban environments. Demonstrating how technology’s spatial footprint now stretches to nearly every corner of the globe, Grounding the Cloud analyzes the often-hidden infrastructures that facilitate platform capitalism—from the mines extracting rare earth minerals in remote regions to the vast global network of fiber-optic cables at the bottom of the oceans to the nondescript data centers that sit on the peripheries of major urban areas. Meanwhile, with compelling examples of smart-city initiatives and corporate campuses, Dr. Fard shows how the future of urbanism is deeply intertwined with the growing economies of data extraction. Breaking down the…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Ali Fard

Topics covered

• cloud computing
• urbanism
• data extraction
• technology
• infrastructure
• geopolitics

Keywords

• cloud
• urbanism
• data
• technology
• infrastructure
• capitalism
• geopolitics

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Minnesota Press

Books & works: Grounding the Cloud: Urbanism in the Shadow of Data

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