Storing data on the margins: making state and infrastructure in Southwest China

Abstract

ABSTRACT Examining the emerging data center industry in Guizhou, Southwest China, this article investigates the infrastructure-making processes that are initiated to implement cloud infrastructures, and how they are mobilized to reconfigure Guizhou’s nature. It discusses how these processes have come about in tandem with the expansion of China’s cloud geography, and how they are impacting the region. Contextualizing and historicizing these processes, this article argues that the developing data center industry in Guizhou is part of the broader process of state-building. These processes of implementing cloud infrastructure in Guizhou lead to the co-production of further state legitimation and continued marginalization of Guizhou, thus calling into question the common claim that technology bridges economic disparities and enhances connectivity.