She stands among the crowds at one of Europe's biggest technology events, a pair of futuristic glasses perched on her nose. Shiona McCallum, the BBC's Tech Life presenter, is at VivaTech in Paris, and she's trying on the latest wearable tech — the kind of device that could soon be in your home or workplace.
But the real story of this year's show isn't just the gadgets you can wear or the screens you can touch. It's the infrastructure humming silently behind them. Data centres, the vast server farms that power our online lives, are central to everything modern — streaming, shopping, even the AI that suggests what to watch next. Not everyone, however, thinks they are great.
“BBC's Shiona McCallum visits VivaTech in Paris, testing wearable tech and interviewing a data centre chief about industry challenges.”
McCallum sat down with the head of a big global data centre company to talk about some of the challenges facing the industry. The conversation, recorded for the BBC World Service programme, touched on the tension between our ever-growing demand for digital services and the physical, environmental and social costs of building the warehouses that make them possible.
VivaTech, held each year in Paris, is a showcase for innovation — and a battleground of ideas. As McCallum moved from booth to booth, the contrast was clear: on one side, sleek wearables promising to change how we interact with the world; on the other, the complex reality of keeping that world connected.
The episode, produced by Tom Quinn, is available on BBC Sounds for more than a year. For now, the conversation continues in Paris — and the question of how to balance tech's promise with its price remains wide open.