Data Is the New Oil: Energy and Computing
as Critical Infrastructures
Accademia dei XL, Rome (Italy), 12-13 July 2027
Workshop on web-based archival preservation: 14 July 2026, La Sapienza
The energy industry and the computing industry are two of the most strategic industries of the 20th century. Today, the production of energy and data is increasingly intertwined, becoming a defining feature of contemporaneity.
Yet, until very recently, these two industries, their infrastructural systems, and their trajectories, have largely been studied in isolation, and treated as distinct and seemingly unrelated subjects of historical investigation.
This conference aims to provide a framework for bringing scholarship on the energy and computing industries into dialogue, comparing two strategic infrastructures that have shaped the world we live in. In particular, we are interested in analysing how different actors have shaped, received, and influenced the development of these industries, from a political, economic, social, technical, international, and cultural perspective.
Ultimately, the conference will address the issues raised by these industries in the realms of national sovereignty and independence, multilevel governance, international and geopolitical relations, political economy, and democracy.
It will examine the role of strategic infrastructures in shaping collaboration (or creating competition and conflicts) among states, as well as between states, public and private actors.
Covering the period from the early twentieth century to the present, the conference will explore questions such as the role of the entrepreneurial state (and its retreat), state capitalism, public–private partnerships, financialisaton, relationships between technology and society, path dependencies and interdependencies, as well as the diverse actors, social reception, and controversies surrounding technological developments.
Suggested topics for conference contributions include, but are not limited to:
· Debates and attempts to build European-level infrastructures in energy and/or in the computing industry
· Privatisations, nationalisations, cooperation and competition in the creation of (inter)national infrastructures
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· Networks in comparison
· Interdependencies between energy and computing infrastructures
· The geopolitics of energy and the geopolitics of data in historical perspective
· Petrocultures, datacultures, and the societal transformation caused by energy and data abundance
· Technological, economic, and cultural spillovers between the energy industry and the computing industry
· Labour, expertise, and professional communities in the field of energy and/or data (including experts in standardisation, regulation, maintainers, etc.)
· The environmental impact of energy and computing infrastructures, including resource extraction, consumption, and sustainability challenges
· Infrastructural dependencies, vulnerabilities, and resilience
· Global inequalities in access to energy and computing infrastructures
· Critical infrastructures and democracy: public accountability, citizenship, surveillance, and the distribution of power
· Controversies, conflicts, and resistance surrounding energy and computing infrastructures
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· Sources and archives on energy and data infrastructure
Please send a short abstract (300 words max) to ditno.conference@gmail.com
The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 31 January 2027. Notification of acceptance will be communicated to applicants by 15 February 2027.
The organisers will provide accommodation for one or two nights; a limited number of travel grants will be available upon request to scholars who require financial support to attend the conference.
On 14 July, a workshop on preserving web-based sources for historical research will be held in collaboration with Aarhus University. Participants wishing to attend the workshop will have to notify the organisers upon sending their abstracts.
Organising committee:
Marta Musso (Sapienza University), marta.musso@uniroma1.it
Filippo De Chirico (Università Roma Tre), fdechirico@uniroma3.it
Scientific committee:
Pascal Griset (Paris Sorbonne),
Per Högselius (Royal Institute of Technology),
Francesca Nemore (Sapienza University),
Cyrus Modi (Maastricht University),
Marta Musso (Sapienza University),
Giovanni Paoloni (Sapienza University),
Valérie Schafer (University of Luxembourg)