The digital cloud is ubiquitous, yet its precise nature remains elusive. It appears to us through the myriad devices and screens that populate our daily lives: phones, laptops, smart home appliances, car interfaces, and countless displays in urban environments. Behind every swipe and stream lies a vast and rapidly expanding data infrastructure: data centers in cities and remote regions, undersea cables, and satellites. These largely invisible structures shape how we live, communicate, and govern, while consuming immense amounts of land, energy, and raw materials.
Despite their impact, data infrastructures are rarely discussed from architectural or political perspectives. Architectural research can reveal these hidden material and political entanglements. That is our goal: to shed light on the cloud, from its historical foundations to future possibilities, and to argue for integrating the design and planning of data infrastructure more closely into societal and political awareness.