It seems immaterial
Cloud and AI are told as bodiless services: a prompt, a query, an account. The physical weight stays out of frame.
The cloud has a body. Energy, chips, mines, labor.
A map to make visible the physical infrastructure behind digital services and artificial intelligence — with a focus on Italy and Europe.
The problem
Cloud and AI are told as bodiless services: a prompt, a query, an account. The physical weight stays out of frame.
Behind every request sit data centers, power plants, semiconductor fabs, and extraction sites — linked in a material supply chain.
These infrastructures are often remote, poorly documented, and hard to discuss in public. The map is there to make them readable.
In the dataset today
A curated, evolving sample: better a few sites with sources than thousands of opaque pins.
What you can do
Isolate hyperscale, gas, mines, or fabs: see what stays in view and what disappears.
Click a site and read the links: who powers, who supplies, with what level of certainty.
Where data are enriched you find reliability, evidence, and notes on labor and impact.
Roadmap
Interactive map of Europe and Italy, filters by site type, icons and connections with a declared certainty level.
Material corridors (AI silicon, battery metals) and cognitive labor (labeling/moderation) with headcount, risks, and certainty. Italy remains the energy/territory foothold; the Anatomy thesis lives on Kolwezi–Hsinchu–Nairobi–campus.
Time series, community-verified contributions, territorial comparisons, and export for journalism and research. Multi-stop «Anatomy» tour.
FAQ
A tool to make visible the physical infrastructure behind cloud and AI: data centers, energy, raw materials, and the links between them, with a focus on Italy and Europe.
No: it is a curated, evolving sample. We prefer a few sites with declared sources and certainty levels over thousands of opaque pins.
No. Each link may be confirmed, likely, inferred, or disputed. On the map you find the certainty and, where available, the evidence note. Public certainty criteria .
The basemap mixes heterogeneous automatic inventories (OSM for many data centers, WRI for plants). Supply-chain corridors and enriched cards are editorial work. Methodology and source limits .
Citizens, journalists, and decision-makers who want to understand systemic impact — energy, territory, labor — beyond the immaterial story of the digital.
Yes: share it, cite the source, and use the map as a starting point. Datasets will keep growing; always note the date you consulted them.
Share
Copy the link or share it where your community discusses — including Mastodon.