Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

2-2026

Abstract

As computing power becomes central to geopolitical rivalry, cloud infrastructure is increasingly framed as critical to national security, economic resilience and technological sovereignty. Current debates often focus on global competition – especially between the U.S. and China – highlighting strategic investments, export controls and infrastructure diplomacy abroad. Yet far less attention has been paid to the domestic territorial transformations that make such geopolitical projection possible. This paper argues that national strategies for AI and cloud dominance depend on the reorganization of land, energy and regulatory systems to sustain large-scale computation. Using a geopolitical ecology framework, we examine how the U.S. and China build national computing power as a strategic economic and military resource. In the U.S., cloud firms operate as state-aligned actors, drawing on fragmented regulatory authority, public subsidies and national security discourse to expand into rural and peri-urban regions. China pursues a more centralized strategy through its East Data, West Computing initiative, redistributing infrastructure to inland provinces under state-led development goals. Through comparative regional analysis, we show how domestic infrastructural expansion underpins geopolitical rivalry, producing new forms of territorial governance and socio-environmental inequality. Far from immaterial, the cloud is grounded in enclosure, extraction and the spatial foundations of techno-industrial power.

Keywords

Geopolitical ecology, infrastructure power, territorial restructuring, cloud capitalism, data centres

Discipline

Geography | Human Geography

Research Areas

Integrative Research Areas

Publication

Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

Volume

58

Issue

1

First Page

38

Last Page

58

ISSN

0308-518X

Identifier

10.1177/0308518X251369704

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X251369704

Download

Share

COinS