Attractiveness versus development?

Maison Suger is pleased to host the fourth session of the seminar organised by GRETS: Attractiveness versus development? The establishment of data centers in France , with Clément Marquet, CSI Mines Paris PSL, i3. The session will be introduced by Michaël Fernandez - EDF R&D.

Since the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence, the development of data centers in France has been presented as a key technological and industrial objective. However, the rapid development of this infrastructure is not without its planning challenges. Due to its land and resource requirements, the installation of data centers profoundly transforms the areas that host them. This installation can conflict with the aspirations of residents, with competing business projects, but also with electricity network management practices. All of these frictions are likely to make investors hesitate. To secure investment, the government has set up a task force within the Ministry of Economy to align the organization of the electricity grid, land opportunities, and investor expectations. At the same time, the draft law on Simplifying Economic Life also aims to facilitate the arrival of large data centers, which could be granted the status of Projects of Major National Interest.

In this presentation, Clément Marquet will take a historical perspective to examine the evolution of mobilization efforts, the political work of operators, and the public policy instruments implemented to regionalize data centers. He will thus shed light on the political, ecological, and social tensions surrounding this national industrial project.

• Clément Marquet is a research fellow at the Center for Sociology of Innovation at Mines Paris – PSL, i3 (UMR 9217), and co-leader of the Digital Environmental Policies working group at the CNRS Internet AI and Society Research Group. His research focuses in particular on the materiality of digital technical systems, i.e., the physical infrastructures that enable them to function—such as data centers and submarine cables—as well as the political, social, and ecological tensions they generate. Using theoretical and methodological frameworks from Science and Technology Studies (STS), he traces how these infrastructures are designed, evaluated, and integrated into territories, as well as how their impacts are measured and politicized.

• Loup Cellard, Clément Marquet, « Frictions sous-marines. Écologies et politiques des fragilités de l'interconnexion numérique », Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances, 17-4 | 2023.
• Guillaume Carnino, Clément Marquet, « Changement d’échelle et industrialisation du numérique. Cooling, quick fix et spaghetti cloud dans l’univers du data center », Artefact. Histoire, techniques et sciences humaines, 2022, n°17.
• Clément Marquet, « Ce nuage que je ne saurais voir. Promouvoir, contester et réguler les data centers à Plaine Commune », Tracés. Revue de sciences humaines, 2018/2 (n°35), p. 75-98.
• Guillaume Carnino, Clément Marquet, "Les datacenters enfoncent le cloud : enjeux politiques et impacts environnementaux d'internet", Zilsel, 2018/1 (n°3), p. 19-62.