In 1966, the port of Marseille became autonomous. It was in the same
year that the Saint Louis sugar company, based in the 15th
arrondissement until 2015, decided to build a gigantic sugar silo within
the port to store brown sugar from the French Overseas Territories. This
building, 80 meters long and 45 meters wide, with its pointed roof, has
been part of the port's decor since that time. It does not go unnoticed
along the A55, the urban highway which runs along the port. Abandoned
for several years, the GPMM (Grand maritime port of Marseille) decided
to destroy it to reuse the area of more than 10,000m². Following a call
for tenders launched in 2022, a project led by the company Digital
Realty won the market with a data center construction project by 2026.
This company is the world leader in data storage and is already the
owner 3 other data centers in Marseille. This new data center will then
be the 4th within the large autonomous port, and the 5th in Marseille.
It will also be the largest of all in terms of surface area. This new
construction is an opportunity for us to understand a little the
usefulness of these giant over-secure buildings, and to also see
everything that results from them.
Even if the press locally follows the evolution of this industrial
sector in the city, many Marseille residents do not know that currently
17 submarine cables linking 53 countries and 4.5 billion people are
attached to the Marseille digital node. These cables, including 2Africa,
the longest submarine cable in the world at 45,000 km, connecting 33
countries in Europe, Africa (via the Strait of Gibraltar) and the Middle
East and Asia (via the Suez Canal), Most of them arrive on Prado beach,
south of Marseille, and are then connected by land to data centers at
the port of Fos-Marseille.
Furthermore, Marseille, due to its geographical location, is connected
to other European terrestrial Internet hubs. Marseille is notably the
arrival point in France for the Chinese cable which connects the city to
Singapore via Malta, the east coast of Africa and Pakistan.
Marseille would become the 5th global IT data hub in 2026, thanks to the
construction of this 5th mega data center.
To put it simply, when behind your computer or smartphone screen you
watch the latest OM football match in streaming, you exchange photos via
WhatsApp or even when you listen to the Égrégore program produced by our
comrade from the OCL of Reims, you consume computer data (DATA)
physically stored somewhere in the world. If viewing an Égrégore radio
show does not represent a large number of megabytes used, dematerialized
finance, intelligence or the very large-scale use of "clouds" by
companies consume much more. To do this, it is necessary to build giant
computer data storage centers. There is always a need for more, as the
volume of data continues to increase every year. In short, these are
sort of huge memory cards where everything that happens on the internet
is stored, temporarily or permanently. Everything is interconnected, so
no data center without an underwater cable, and in fact no teleworking
either! This IT data industry is a growing sector and a strategic sector
for states and industry. This extremely rapid development raises
multiple questions, including from a purely environmental point of view
where this industry is a real ecological aberration... but not economic!
Indeed, just as your small office computer requires cooling that
consumes quite a lot of energy, these data centers must also be cooled.
They consume both a crazy amount of energy and a lot of fresh water. Not
to mention the impact of their constructions and their lifespan which is
not yet really known. For water consumption, the industry is located in
the port of Marseille, because the Caravelle stream circulates
underground, diverted during the construction of the port, and whose
temperature remains constantly around 15°C. Ideal for cooling, to the
point that the industry prides itself on being "green" because it uses a
"useless" stream. If we focus on electricity consumption, in the case of
Marseille, Digital Realty has an overestimated contract with RTE in
order to ensure potential overconsumption. Micro-power outages are
unthinkable.
Error is not possible for this type of structure, so the company
protects itself, because if the data center is down, its customers,
mainly GAFAM and States, see their data exchanges significantly slowed
down! In this era of everything being dematerialized, this is unthinkable.
Note also, to situate a little what this industry represents in terms of
consumption, according to Bernard Genet, former trade unionist and port
employee, member of the History and Contemporary Memory of the Port of
Marseille association and environmental activist, electricity
consumption national power for the use of computer data (including
personal mobile phone charging) represents approximately 10% of national
electricity production.
Apart from a few remarks from local EELV elected officials who were
concerned about the electricity consumption that we have just mentioned,
the opposition is practically nil. Let us note in passing that EELV has
always been a party in favor of dematerialization and digital
technology, such as for example the elimination of bus tickets with
digital passes (and therefore data) in the 2010s (the example of Lille
is quite explicit, see the book Green Hell by Tomjo). They are therefore
in a rather bad position when David Cormant supports with a few local
elected officials an official position in order to "control" the growth
of this industry.
As for the activist collectives present in the city, this subject is
rarely discussed either. This is explained by the fact that this
industry is very discreet and its communication, however limited, is
extremely controlled. Furthermore, today's environmental activist is
often very connected and ultimately knows how to make the link between
the cloud of his organization and his Zoom meeting better than the
criticism of capital and that of the digital industry...
Note, however, some unclaimed actions (which seems logical given the
colossal sum at stake) against computer installations. Not against data
centers per se, but against cables. Data centers are structures that are
far too monitored and protected to be able to do anything. The cables
are easily accessible to those who know how to recognize them, because
they often run in parallel with urban pipes. Sabotage in October 2022
took place on a "segment of the fiber backbone which carries the Western
Internet from northern Europe to Marseille[which]was cut at
Aix-en-Provence. According to the first elements of the investigation,
the criminals were enough to lift the cast iron cover of a telecom
chamber dug under the road and cut through the sheath in which the
cables filled with fibers pass.» In April of the same year, similar
actions took place around Paris. These symbolic actions did not hinder
the smooth running of the Internet... but symbolically they had been
very effective because the entire press had relayed this action...
Finally, further from home, but not so much on the scale of IT
interconnection, we learned through the press these last week that the
Houthis (Yemen) have cut a data cable! All the more reason to secure
Marseille's strategic facilities extremely strongly, so that no one can
attack these infrastructures which have become necessary for, among
others, all of the world's banks.
The transformation of the city of Marseille since 1995 with the
Euro-Mediterranean project, then Euro-Mediterranean 2 in 2007, aimed at
razing the working-class neighborhoods in the north along the port into
business districts is progressing slowly. The urban renewal of this
sector is obviously taking place with its share of violent evictions,
expropriations, destruction of wasteland, etc. A new district of
skyscrapers, "modern" buildings to provide offices and "quality" housing
replaces the factories, the small dilapidated workers' houses and the
poor but lively alleys. The parallel progression of this urban
aberration of the data and digital industry seems logical in a vision of
capitalist growth and transformation of the port's industrial
activities. That this steamroller of digital and all dematerialized
finds the city of Marseille like El Dorado is a real snub to the popular
and working classes who in Marseille, more than elsewhere, suffer more
and more from digital precariousness...
Arthur
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4142
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
year that the Saint Louis sugar company, based in the 15th
arrondissement until 2015, decided to build a gigantic sugar silo within
the port to store brown sugar from the French Overseas Territories. This
building, 80 meters long and 45 meters wide, with its pointed roof, has
been part of the port's decor since that time. It does not go unnoticed
along the A55, the urban highway which runs along the port. Abandoned
for several years, the GPMM (Grand maritime port of Marseille) decided
to destroy it to reuse the area of more than 10,000m². Following a call
for tenders launched in 2022, a project led by the company Digital
Realty won the market with a data center construction project by 2026.
This company is the world leader in data storage and is already the
owner 3 other data centers in Marseille. This new data center will then
be the 4th within the large autonomous port, and the 5th in Marseille.
It will also be the largest of all in terms of surface area. This new
construction is an opportunity for us to understand a little the
usefulness of these giant over-secure buildings, and to also see
everything that results from them.
Even if the press locally follows the evolution of this industrial
sector in the city, many Marseille residents do not know that currently
17 submarine cables linking 53 countries and 4.5 billion people are
attached to the Marseille digital node. These cables, including 2Africa,
the longest submarine cable in the world at 45,000 km, connecting 33
countries in Europe, Africa (via the Strait of Gibraltar) and the Middle
East and Asia (via the Suez Canal), Most of them arrive on Prado beach,
south of Marseille, and are then connected by land to data centers at
the port of Fos-Marseille.
Furthermore, Marseille, due to its geographical location, is connected
to other European terrestrial Internet hubs. Marseille is notably the
arrival point in France for the Chinese cable which connects the city to
Singapore via Malta, the east coast of Africa and Pakistan.
Marseille would become the 5th global IT data hub in 2026, thanks to the
construction of this 5th mega data center.
To put it simply, when behind your computer or smartphone screen you
watch the latest OM football match in streaming, you exchange photos via
WhatsApp or even when you listen to the Égrégore program produced by our
comrade from the OCL of Reims, you consume computer data (DATA)
physically stored somewhere in the world. If viewing an Égrégore radio
show does not represent a large number of megabytes used, dematerialized
finance, intelligence or the very large-scale use of "clouds" by
companies consume much more. To do this, it is necessary to build giant
computer data storage centers. There is always a need for more, as the
volume of data continues to increase every year. In short, these are
sort of huge memory cards where everything that happens on the internet
is stored, temporarily or permanently. Everything is interconnected, so
no data center without an underwater cable, and in fact no teleworking
either! This IT data industry is a growing sector and a strategic sector
for states and industry. This extremely rapid development raises
multiple questions, including from a purely environmental point of view
where this industry is a real ecological aberration... but not economic!
Indeed, just as your small office computer requires cooling that
consumes quite a lot of energy, these data centers must also be cooled.
They consume both a crazy amount of energy and a lot of fresh water. Not
to mention the impact of their constructions and their lifespan which is
not yet really known. For water consumption, the industry is located in
the port of Marseille, because the Caravelle stream circulates
underground, diverted during the construction of the port, and whose
temperature remains constantly around 15°C. Ideal for cooling, to the
point that the industry prides itself on being "green" because it uses a
"useless" stream. If we focus on electricity consumption, in the case of
Marseille, Digital Realty has an overestimated contract with RTE in
order to ensure potential overconsumption. Micro-power outages are
unthinkable.
Error is not possible for this type of structure, so the company
protects itself, because if the data center is down, its customers,
mainly GAFAM and States, see their data exchanges significantly slowed
down! In this era of everything being dematerialized, this is unthinkable.
Note also, to situate a little what this industry represents in terms of
consumption, according to Bernard Genet, former trade unionist and port
employee, member of the History and Contemporary Memory of the Port of
Marseille association and environmental activist, electricity
consumption national power for the use of computer data (including
personal mobile phone charging) represents approximately 10% of national
electricity production.
Apart from a few remarks from local EELV elected officials who were
concerned about the electricity consumption that we have just mentioned,
the opposition is practically nil. Let us note in passing that EELV has
always been a party in favor of dematerialization and digital
technology, such as for example the elimination of bus tickets with
digital passes (and therefore data) in the 2010s (the example of Lille
is quite explicit, see the book Green Hell by Tomjo). They are therefore
in a rather bad position when David Cormant supports with a few local
elected officials an official position in order to "control" the growth
of this industry.
As for the activist collectives present in the city, this subject is
rarely discussed either. This is explained by the fact that this
industry is very discreet and its communication, however limited, is
extremely controlled. Furthermore, today's environmental activist is
often very connected and ultimately knows how to make the link between
the cloud of his organization and his Zoom meeting better than the
criticism of capital and that of the digital industry...
Note, however, some unclaimed actions (which seems logical given the
colossal sum at stake) against computer installations. Not against data
centers per se, but against cables. Data centers are structures that are
far too monitored and protected to be able to do anything. The cables
are easily accessible to those who know how to recognize them, because
they often run in parallel with urban pipes. Sabotage in October 2022
took place on a "segment of the fiber backbone which carries the Western
Internet from northern Europe to Marseille[which]was cut at
Aix-en-Provence. According to the first elements of the investigation,
the criminals were enough to lift the cast iron cover of a telecom
chamber dug under the road and cut through the sheath in which the
cables filled with fibers pass.» In April of the same year, similar
actions took place around Paris. These symbolic actions did not hinder
the smooth running of the Internet... but symbolically they had been
very effective because the entire press had relayed this action...
Finally, further from home, but not so much on the scale of IT
interconnection, we learned through the press these last week that the
Houthis (Yemen) have cut a data cable! All the more reason to secure
Marseille's strategic facilities extremely strongly, so that no one can
attack these infrastructures which have become necessary for, among
others, all of the world's banks.
The transformation of the city of Marseille since 1995 with the
Euro-Mediterranean project, then Euro-Mediterranean 2 in 2007, aimed at
razing the working-class neighborhoods in the north along the port into
business districts is progressing slowly. The urban renewal of this
sector is obviously taking place with its share of violent evictions,
expropriations, destruction of wasteland, etc. A new district of
skyscrapers, "modern" buildings to provide offices and "quality" housing
replaces the factories, the small dilapidated workers' houses and the
poor but lively alleys. The parallel progression of this urban
aberration of the data and digital industry seems logical in a vision of
capitalist growth and transformation of the port's industrial
activities. That this steamroller of digital and all dematerialized
finds the city of Marseille like El Dorado is a real snub to the popular
and working classes who in Marseille, more than elsewhere, suffer more
and more from digital precariousness...
Arthur
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4142
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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