Denmark – The Data Kingdom?
This week Weekendavisen published the article ‘Datariget’ (The Data Kingdom) 
on the current constructions of data centers in Denmark.
For this story TiP’s James Maguire, post doctoral researcher, was interviewed about his research on why Denmark has become an attractive location for European data centers.
Maguire points out to Weekendavisen that there is an assumption that the big tech companies, such as Apple and Facebook, are future makers, and that they have the ability to create something magical that we don’t know how to create ourselves. He adds that this idea of magical tech companies is especially attractive to small states and regions where industries have moved away and where public funding has been minimal. Part of the allure is the indefinite value of the projects – no one really knows how many news jobs will be created or how large investments will be made, but there’s a belief that the coming of Apple to Viborg and Facebook to Odense offers a promissory future.
Go to Weekendavisen to read the full article in Danish (subscription needed)
Research on data centres
In his research, James Maguire explores ethnographically why Denmark has become an attractive location for European data centers. Moreover, the research examines the emerging relations between the Big-Tech corporations that own the data centres and the states that host them.
James Maguire is a post doctoral researcher in the TiP based and VELUX funded
research project “Data as Relation – Governance in the Age of Big Data”.