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The Documentary Podcast

Dark fibres and the frozen north

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.32.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If data is the new oil, are data centres the new oil rigs? Far into the north of Norway are some of the biggest data centres in the world. As a more internet enabled future, with AI and the internet of things, becomes reality – data more than ever needs a physical home. Inside a former mineral mine lies a huge data mine, next to a deep fjord, and the data is pinged back and forth across the globe. But the Sami, the traditional people of the region, have found traditional lands in some parts spoiled by huge hydroelectric dams.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Eagle, Houston, you're a gopher landing over?

0:02.8

We were getting very, very short to minimum fuel.

0:06.0

Then it was 60 seconds.

0:07.6

Over.

0:08.6

Which many he had 60 seconds to land.

0:11.4

It was dead silence in mission control.

0:14.0

Thirteen minutes to the moon, from the BBC World Service coming soon.

0:30.0

These are the haunting sounds of the yolks. These are the haunting sounds of the yoke.

0:33.0

The song sung by the Sammy here in Tromso, Arctic Norway's biggest city.

0:42.0

They're the people who've lived in Europe's far north for thousands of years.

0:45.0

The reindeer herders and fishermen whose sounds and culture are woven into these dark lands under the Northern Light. They're celebrating their national day at this town hall,

1:00.0

a colourful sight in their traditional frilled dresses, dackets, pointy hats and pom-pom shoes.

1:05.0

A traditional sight perhaps, except for the outstretched hands

1:08.8

clasping smartphones and taking selfies.

1:11.8

While all of these smiling photos and videos might feel

1:14.1

ethereal, they need a physical location. They're housed like everything else we do on

1:19.8

the internet in data centers and more and more of those are coming here to Arctic Norway.

1:26.0

I'm Katie Prescott and I've come to Norway for the BBC's World Service to look at how

1:31.0

data is shaping this frozen landscape.

1:34.0

We had the collections about a troll which we call Stalo.

1:42.0

And you find it only in Sami-Captur. about a troll which we call stalo.

1:42.5

And you find it only in semi culture.

...

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