The digital “cloud” is a real place. It is a patchwork of subsea and terrestrial fiber optic cables (the highways of the internet), internet exchanges (also known as IXPs, the transit hubs of the internet), and data centers (interconnection points, compute locations, and storage centers of the internet). Although almost all global digital communications transit across these infrastructures, they remain largely invisible—even to businesses, governments, and publics that rely on them. Central questions of the course include: How does the internet really work? Who builds it? What challenges do they face?
This course offers an in-depth exploration of the foundational elements of digital infrastructure, focusing on the global backbone and “first mile” infrastructure of data centers and fiber-optic cables. It will examine the critical role of these physical infrastructures in emergent internet technologies such as cloud computing and edge computing. Students will investigate how data centers and cables underpin modern digital services such as video streaming, online gaming, and e-commerce. The course will cover the historical development of data centers and cables, their impact on the evolving landscape of internet technology, and the core components of these facilities and networks. By understanding these critical components, students will gain a comprehensive view of how digital infrastructure supports and transforms the modern world.
This multi-disciplinary course is rigorous, but requires no previous training in digital infrastructure or technology. It offers a broad introduction to digital infrastructure that supports almost all media circulation today. The primary texts and lectures will cover core components of subsea and terrestrial cables, as well as the data centers they connect, edge sites at IXPs or between users and IXPs, and private cloud backbones that connect IXPs and data centers. In addition to a ground-up discussion on these various elements and how they work together, the course examines how network traffic activates and transits digital infrastructures, and the companies and people that own and operate these systems. As is true across the Berkeley Center for New Media’s digital infrastructure curriculum, the impact and significance of artificial intelligence, sustainability, and energy are critical topics. Students will learn how AI is transforming the backbone of the internet, and how sustainability and energy will shape the networks of tomorrow. As a culminating project, students will learn to follow a packet across a network–and conduct research on all of the infrastructures it transits en route.
To find out more about Digital Infrastructures, watch Nicole Starosielski describe Digital Infrastructure 101 in 101 seconds here, and check out the full video here!
Course Objectives
In this course you will learn to:
- Identify the basic physical infrastructures that support internet transmission around the world.
- Describe the role of each infrastructure in the overall network and the basic relationships between them.
- Identify digital infrastructure companies and describe their assets.
- Use traceroute and online databases to reconstruct potential paths of internet packets across the global network.
- Assess how major digital transitions, including the advancement of artificial intelligence, are affecting the development of infrastructure and vice versa.
MODULE 01: The Backbone of the Internet
MODULE 02: The Evolution of the Data Center: From Enterprise to Cloud
MODULE 03: Traffic Patterns, Capacity, and Routing
MODULE 04: Inside the Black Box: Data Center Components
MODULE 05: Deep Dive: Subsea Cable Components
MODULE 06: Zooming out to the Ecosystem
Online Format:
All lecture and discussion content will be scheduled synchronously so that students will have the opportunity to ask questions, contribute ideas, and hear from guest lecturers. It will also be recorded and made available for any student that needs to take the course asynchronously.
Taught by: Nicole Starosielski
Nicole Starosielski, Professor of Film and Media at the University of California-Berkeley and the Berkeley Center for New Media, conducts research on global internet infrastructure, with a focus on the subsea cables that carry almost 100% of transoceanic internet traffic. Starosielski is author or co-editor of over thirty articles and five books on media, infrastructure, and environments, including: The Undersea Network (2015), which chronicled the history and present of the subsea telecommunications cable network from the 1800s to today.
Over the past several years, Starosielski has been working with the SubOptic Association and Foundation to develop research and educational programs to support the subsea cable industry. Starosielski is also a co-convenor of the SubOptic Association’s Global Citizen Working Group and a Principal Investigator on a SubOptic project to enhance the strategic resilience of subsea cables in the Caribbean. Starosielski's most recent project, Sustainable Subsea Networks (https://www.sustainablesubseanetworks.com/), works to enhance the sustainability of subsea cable infrastructures. The project has developed a catalog of best practices for sustainability in the subsea cable and a carbon footprint of a subsea cable.
Starosielski launched the Certificate in Global Digital Infrastructure in 2025, in collaboration with the Berkeley Center for New Media, the SubOptic Foundation, iMasons, Data Center Dynamics, and Telegeography.