Where the Internet Lives

Where the Internet Lives is back for a fourth season. 

In past episodes, we’ve taken you on tours of data centers, talked to people who run the supercomputers that make up the internet, and showed you a world few people get to see.

This season, host Stephanie Wong explores how data center infrastructure is critical for making the world a more resilient place.

Over the next five episodes, you'll hear stories about people who are building data-driven solutions for some of the world’s biggest challenges – from the U.S. Forest Service using AI to better predict wildfires, to utilities using AI to improve grid resiliency. 

As communities all over the world grapple with extreme weather, rising energy demand, food insecurity, and public health threats, the role of data centers is more important than ever for supporting solutions.

Subscribe to Where the Internet Lives on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get your shows. 

And this season, we’ll have some film documentaries to complement our audio stories. The new season drops October 9. We can’t wait to welcome you back.

Hanoi Hantrakul is a musician and research scientist who works on audio and artificial intelligence. He is a former AI resident at Google working on creative applications of machine learning for music. His musical nom de plume is "Yaboi Hanoi."

Project Magenta is a research group inside Google that started with a simple question: Can we use machine learning to create compelling art and enhance creative expression?

As an AI expert and musician, Hanoi has worked on many different tools that expand the possibilities of musical composition. And thanks to the underlying technical innovations inside data centers, these tools are getting much better – opening the doors for musicians and non-musicians alike.

Hanoi also won an international AI song contest with his composition titled “Enter Demons and Gods,” which mashed together AI instruments with musical influences from Southeast Asia.

Listen to a full version of Hanoi's music, plus other AI song contest entries. Find out more information about Google's Project Magenta.

Mikko Green is an operations manager at Google's data center in Hamina, Finland. In 2012, when Mikko applied to work at the facility, he was excited about the prospect of moving back to the country where his mother was born.

Over the years, Mikko has witnessed Finland's broader economic shift toward digital tech, which is now a top industry in the country. 

Finland is a top global producer of paper. But every year, paper demand falls – putting pressure on the industry. Faced with challenges in the pulp and paper industry, Finland is pursuing new forms of economic development. Data centers are one opportunity. 

For over a decade, Google has been operating a data center in Hamina, Finland, at an abandoned paper mill. The company has invested €2 billion in the Hamina data center and related network infrastructure – and hired workers who were formerly employed in paper production.

Learn more about Google's investments in communities like Hamina.

Sarah Hess is one of a million union workers in the U.S. construction industry. But she’s a rare woman in the field. About 90% of the construction workforce is male – a number that hasn't changed much over the past three decades.

Oregon Tradeswomen is an organization devoted to helping women like Sarah build careers in construction, manufacturing, mechanical, and utility trades. In 2022, Google gave $150,000 to the organization to support diversifying these industries. It's part of a multi-state effort at Google to support programs that elevate tradeswomen – some of whom will eventually build data centers.

Sarah has faced many obstacles in her life: homelessness, drug addiction, and a life-threatening tumor. Her new career in the construction trade has helped her overcome many of those difficulties. 

Learn more about the Oregon Tradeswomen program.

The Netherlands has a unique relationship with water. One-third of the country lies below sea level, and almost 20% of the mainland is water – largely due to the 6,000 kilometers of waterways that support industry and recreation.

Pumping and diverting and blocking water is what made the Netherlands possible, turning it into a vital European trading hub and top agricultural exporter. But now, the masters of controlling water are facing a new challenge: worsening drought.

That’s why Google partnered with North Water, a Dutch water treatment company, to harness water from a network of canals to cool its data center. 

The €‎45-million project featured construction of a pipeline that can carry 10 million cubic meters of water each year to the data center. It also required a new treatment plant to treat and filter the water. The project illustrates the creative, sustainable methods for cooling data centers that Google is deploying around the world.

Learn more about Google’s partnership with North Water and Google’s water sustainability commitments. After you listen to the episode, watch a short documentary film about the project here. 

Ian Yang knew he was gay at an early age. But it wasn’t until arriving at Google that he felt comfortable opening up about his sexuality – eventually lighting a spark that made him a positive force in the political discussion around LGBTQ+ rights in Taiwan.

Ian is an operations engineer at Google’s data center in Changhua County, Taiwan. He ensures that management and training processes run effectively inside the facility. He is also one of the coordinators of the largest Gay Pride parade in East Asia.

Over the last decade, Ian has witnessed – and influenced – dramatic change in the politics around same-sex rights in Taiwan. 

Learn more about Google’s data center operations in Taiwan. Read about Google’s support of the LGBTQ+ community.

Note: this episode contains references to sexual assault. Please take care while listening.

Data centers are the latest in a long list of big projects that Dave Moody has tackled over three decades running a construction company. But as an aspiring Black architect, he didn’t know if he’d ever have the same opportunities as his white counterparts.

Racial disparities didn’t stop him. Dave started with a single $88,000 contract in the late 1980s and grew his company, CD Moody Construction, to build museums, stadiums, and airport terminals.

As his business expanded, Dave had to face a personal trauma head-on – reckoning with the memories of childhood sexual abuse – and learn to live his life as a healed person, not just a survivor. That allowed him to seize on new opportunities, like when Google came looking for help with data center construction in Georgia. It also allowed him to become a model and mentor for others.

Learn more about Google’s supplier diversity program. After you listen to the episode, watch a short documentary film about Dave and his journey  here.

A solar-centric world is coming. Solar generates just over 3% of the world's electricity. By the middle of the century, it could make up nearly 40% of global electricity consumption.

That growth is made possible by sophisticated manufacturing, maturing business models, and fast-dropping costs. It’s also increasingly enabled by artificial intelligence – and the data centers that power it.

Samuel Adeyemo is the co-founder of Aurora Solar, a company using AI to quickly model and execute millions of rooftop solar projects. Aurora partners with Google’s Project Sunroof to integrate vast geospatial data sets into the software.

As the digital tools behind solar get more sophisticated, data centers have the potential to be the backbone of the clean energy economy.

Learn how Project Sunroof is enabling more solar. To discover how data centers are  supporting clean energy around the globe, check out Google's 24/7 carbon-free energy mission.

Lenoir, North Carolina, was once a global furniture manufacturing hub. For Rachel Scercy, the furniture industry was the center of her family life. And then the jobs vanished in the 1990s.

Today, communities like Lenoir are often seen as great sites for data centers because of their strong industrial histories. In 2007, Google built a $1.2 billion data center a mile outside of Lenoir, creating over a thousand jobs to date – hundreds in construction, and hundreds of permanent jobs in operations. Since then, the region has attracted more data centers from other top tech, retail, and entertainment companies. 

Intimately experienced with the ups and downs of Lenoir's economic transformation, Rachel is part of Lenoir's new generation of workers who are employed at a data center rather than in the furniture industry.

Learn more

 about career opportunities and Google’s investments in communities like Lenoir.

In Tennessee, the digital future is merging with the ecological past. 

Clarksville, where Google has a data center, is home to a fragile ecosystem that has vanished across America: grasslands. What if we could use large campuses like data centers to transform land back into long-lost prairies – restoring ecological diversity and an important piece of American history? Dwayne Estes of the Southeastern Grasslands Institute is dedicating his life to making that a reality.

After you listen to the episode, watch the documentary about grasslands restoration at Google’s data center.