Shiona McCallum is standing on the show floor of VivaTech in Paris, one of Europe's biggest technology events, wearing a piece of experimental wearable kit. Around her, thousands of exhibitors are showcasing gadgets that could be in homes and workplaces before long – from next-generation sensors to AI-powered devices. But the BBC presenter is not just browsing; she is also digging into a less glamorous but more pressing question: what powers all this innovation?
The answer, she discovers, lies in data centres – the vast, energy-hungry facilities that underpin modern online life. They process everything from streaming video to cloud computing, but they are increasingly controversial. Communities and environmental groups question their land use, water consumption and carbon footprint.
“Shiona McCallum visits VivaTech in Paris, exploring new tech and data centre challenges with a global industry head.”
At the conference, McCallum sits down with the head of a major global data centre company to discuss the challenges facing the industry. The executive acknowledges the tensions, pointing to the need for more efficient designs and renewable energy sources. But the conversation also highlights a fundamental dilemma: the digital economy depends on these facilities, yet their expansion often meets local resistance.
McCallum's journey through VivaTech captures a moment of technological promise shadowed by infrastructural strain. The wearable tech on her wrist represents a future of seamless connectivity – but that future rests on concrete-and-server towers that not everyone wants in their backyard. The podcast episode, produced by Tom Quinn, serves as a dispatch from the front line of that contradiction.