Notes
1 International Telecommunication Union, “ITU Broadband Maps,” International Telecommunication Union, n.d., https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Technology/Pages/InteractiveTransmissionMaps.aspx.
2 Awais Ahmed, Cloud Computing in Developing Countries: Opportunities and Challenges (Washington, DC: Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, March 1, 2017), https://www.isaca.org/resources/isaca-journal/issues/2017/volume-2/cloud-computing-in-developing-countries-opportunities-and-challenges#2.
3 And as a small town in Virginia, USA experienced with Microsoft’s opening of a large data center, even this may sometimes not be the case, with the operation of these data centers being carried out by outside technicians, and local talent being employed as administrative assistants and janitorial staff. See: Alison DeNisco Rayome, “Why data centers fail to bring new jobs to small towns,” Tech Republic, September 19, 2019, https://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-data-centers-fail-to-bring-new-jobs-to-small-towns/.
4 United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Council, “Ending Internet shutdowns: a path forward,” United Nations, June 15, 2021, https://undocs.org/A/HRC/47/24/Add.2
5 AT&T “AT&T Moves 5G Mobile Network to Microsoft Cloud,” AT&T, June 30, 2021, https://about.att.com/story/2021/att_microsoft_azure.html.
6 Qatar Financial Centre, “Qatar Remains Open for Business,” Bloomberg, https://sponsored.bloomberg.com/immersive/qatar-financial-centre/qatar-open-business
7 Leila Hawkins, “Microsoft launches Tech for Social Impact for elderly care,” Healthcare Global, July 23, 2021 https://healthcareglobal.com/technology-and-ai/microsoft-launches-tech-social-impact-elderly-care.
8 Achieving and retaining an environment that may support the operation of more than one provider may not always be possible as the costs associated with establishing the requisite physical infrastructure to host multiple vendors may also be prohibitive or governments may wish to limit the number of foreign providers who are allowed to operate in-territory due to national security concerns (for example, refrain from granting operational licenses).
9 Tanwen Dawn-Hiscox, “Virginia offered record tax breaks to attract data centers in 2020,” Data Center Dynamics, December 24, 2020, https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/virginia-offered-record-tax-breaks-attract-data-centers-2020/.
10 Olivia Solon, “Drought-stricken communities push back against data centers,” NBC News, June 19, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/drought-stricken-communities-push-back-against-data-centers-n1271344.
11 Dirk-Jan van de Ven, Iñigo Capellan-Peréz, Iñaki Arto, Ignacio Cazcarro, Carlos de Castro, Pralit Patel, and Mikel Gonzalez-Eguino, “The potential land requirements and related land use change emissions of solar energy,” Scientific Reports 11, no. 2907 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82042-5.
12 Though submarine communication cables have not historically been found to adversely affect marine life, there do exist concerns over the increasing proliferation of these cables (as hyperscale cloud providers increasingly invest in the expansion of submarine cables globally. See: Yevgeniy Sverdlik, “How Hyperscale Cloud Platforms are Reshaping the Submarine Cable Industry,” Data Center Knowledge, February 17, 2021, https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/networks/how-hyperscale-cloud-platforms-are-reshaping-submarine-cable-industry ; Drew FitzGerald, “Google Plans to Expand Huge Undersea Cables to Boost Cloud Business,” The Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-plans-to-expand-huge-undersea-cables-to-boost-cloud-business-1516098601). Moreover, as cloud providers experiment with alternative data center structures, such as underwater data centers, there remains a need to see how these structures may affect local marine ecosystems. (for example, Microsoft’s Project Nantick. See: Peter Judge, “Project Natick: Microsoft’s underwater voyage of discovery,” Data Center Dynamics, January 5, 2021, https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/project-natick-microsofts-underwater-voyage-discovery/).