Hosted by Eleanor Drage and Kerry McInerney, The Good Robot is a podcast which explores the many complex intersections between gender, feminism and technology.
The battle over data centres with Tara Merk
How can communities take back control of the digital infrastructure that powers everyday life? In this episode, Eleanor Drage speaks with Tara Merk about how community-owned data centers could transform digital ownership and challenge the dominance of Big Tech.
The conversation explores alternative models of internet infrastructure that prioritize local empowerment, sustainability, and cooperative governance over corporate control. Drawing on examples from Germany’s renewable energy sector and community-led initiatives, Merk reflects on how decentralized ownership models can create fairer and more environmentally responsible technological systems. The episode also examines what it would mean to design digital infrastructure around collective needs rather than profit, reimagining the internet as a shared public resource.
Watch the episode here:
Tara Merk is a researcher and advocate focused on digital infrastructure, sustainability, and community-led technology systems. Her work explores how cooperative and locally governed models can reshape the ownership and operation of data infrastructure, with particular attention to environmental responsibility, democratic governance, and digital equity.
You can find the episode reading list and transcript here.
About The Good Robot Podcast
Dr Eleanor Drage and Dr Kerry McInerney are Research Associates at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, where they work on the Mercator-Stiflung funded project on Desirable Digitalisation. Previously, they were Christina Gaw Postdoctoral Researchers in Gender and Technology at the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies. During the COVID-19 pandemic they decided to co-found The Good Robot Podcast to explore the many complex intersections between gender, feminism and technology.