Data centers have quickly gone from virtually invisible to the target of the public’s ire — such that San Francisco has even passed a moratorium on new data centers. Join Hyperscale author Paris Marx for a conversation with Wendy Liu about the tech industry’s buildout of hyperscale data centers, what’s driving the opposition to them, and whether we really need to accept the future being foisted on us by Silicon Valley’s billionaires.

In Hyperscale, journalist Paris Marx uncovers the excesses of hyperscale data processing. He exposes the deceptive, exploitative ways tech companies are siphoning energy and resources from vulnerable communities in their pursuit of digital power, abandoning the pretense of social responsibility.

Amid energy shortages and tech-induced battles over drinking water, Marx makes a powerful case for technology that promotes the social good over the bottom lines of tech billionaires. He joins the incredible efforts of people and social movements pushing back against the profit-driven interests of Big Tech, illuminating a path toward the sustainable future we all deserve.

The AI boom and its infrastructural demands have accelerated our many modern catastrophes. With razor-sharp reporting and incisive analysis, Marx shows us that the greatest threat is not the specter of AI overlords but a global environmental disaster already in the making.

Paris Marx is a Canadian tech critic and host of the acclaimed Tech Won’t Save Us podcast. He speaks around the world about the politics of technology and writes the Disconnect newsletter. Paris is the author of Hyperscale: The Ambition and Excess of Big Tech’s Data Empires.

Wendy Liu is the author of Abolish Silicon Valley: How to Liberate Technology from Capitalism (Repeater, 2020). She writes a column about San Francisco’s bizarre tech billboard for Bay Area Current.