The Geopolitics of Data, What Future Follows?

Summary:

Microchips are central to advancements in both civilian tech and warfare.
Despite being one of the most resource-intensive industries, the semiconductor sector benefits from a global trend of weakening environmental regulations, while audits and offset markets offer corporate deniability.
The semiconductor industry engages in corruption, environmental violations and monopolistic practices, mirroring opaque practices found in the global arms trade.

As the climate crisis deepens, we face a global paradox. The countries most responsible for global emissions are home to the world’s largest tech and defense companies. Which in turn, sell and test their products in the regions most affected by climate change. The new, highly energy-intensive, militarized tech industry relies, like much of our digital lives, on one key product: microchips.

Global power competition increasingly hinges on technological superiority in both civilian and military domains. At the core of this race are microchips—the tiny “brains” powering modern military systems. Embedded across a wide range of platforms, they enable Emerging Disruptive Technologies (EDTs) such as artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous weapons systems (AWS), space-based systems and hypersonic systems to name a few.

Much has changed since the phrase “Data is the new oil” was first coined in 2006. By that time, the world created 161 exabytes of data (161bn GB), in 2025, the number has skyrocketed to at least 175 zettabytes (175 trillion GB). If all this data were stored on DVDs, the stack could circle the Earth 222 times or travel the moon 23 times. In 2008, half of the world’s ten largest companies were in the oil industry; ten years later, seven of the top ten were technology firms.[1] In 2025, 8 of the top 10 are in technology, semiconductor and social media sectors.[2] As OpenAI CEO Sam Altman puts it; “I think compute is gonna be the currency of the future.”

Just as oil has been militarized, fueling conflict to ensure its access and control, data appears to be heading in a similar direction. Today, some data centres are being constructed in former civil and military bunkers albeit physical attacks on these facilities remain rare compared to cyberattacks.[3] At the same time, an increasing number of tech companies are pivoting toward military applications. Major firms such as Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, and Amazon are now actively developing technologies for defense and security purposes. While at the same time collectively purchasing half of the global corporate renewables market.

Data and technology are being marketed as more “precise” and “efficient” ways of killing and conducting war.This piece aims to shed light on how the Microchip industry, enjoying its centrality in defining global power, chooses the path to further damage the environment, support in the construction of “smart” weapons and engage in different forms of corruption.

A mechanical probe tests a VLSI microchip during manufacture. July 1985. Photo credit: Robert Kerton, CSIRO.

Manufacturing and Environmental Footprint of Microchips

Exploiting different mineral properties has led to the miniaturisation of technology. Reshaping the civilian and military sectors, while enabling more people to go online on faster and smaller devices. In 2025, 5.64 billion people use the internet worldwide, representing 68.7% of the global population.

In 5 years, as of time of writing, the semiconductor industry is expected to emit more tonnes of carbon dioxide than Portugal did in 2021.[4] By 2034, data centres are expected to reach approximately 1,580 terawatt-hours (TWh) annually, roughly the total electricity usage of a country like India.

Microchips traverse up to 70 international borders before being a fully assembled product .[5] Economies of scale allow for deniability. For instance, it took Intel 4 years to have basic insights of its supply chain, evolving more than 16.000 suppliers. The supply chain of microchips is far more dependent on a handful[6] of actors compared to the oil industry, where OPEC controls 40% of its global production.

The production of microchips is resource intensive. Requiring significant energy and resources. Vast amounts of water are used in the manufacturing process (cleaning and etching, chemical processing, cooling) and in post production, to cool data centres and to produce the electricity needed for their functioning.[7]

In 2025, there are at least 11,800 data centres around the globe. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), a single 100-megawatt data center uses up to 2 million liters of water daily, roughly equal to the water use of 6,500 households.[8] Big Tech companies have built and are currently building data centres in Earth’s driest areas. A future of expansionist investment in the Giant’s megaprojects further intensifies pressure on the environment and its inhabitants.[9]. In 2023, Google said 15% of its water consumption was in areas with “high water scarcity”. Looking closer, Google has admitted that its data centers in The Dalles were consuming 29% of the town’s water supply. While simultaneously the company was pursuing plans to build two more data centers there. Similarly, Microsoft stated that 42% of its data centres were in “areas with water stress”. To balance this huge environmental impact, in 2024, Microsoft was the second–largest purchaser of carbon credits, just after the oil giant Shell.

Microchips require certain minerals. From a sample of 5,097 mining projects tracking 30 transitional minerals and metals (where 12 are quintessential for the chip industry), 54%[10] of the projects were located on or near Indigenous land, highlighting how the global computing power sustaining modern societies and its armies, is rooted in an extractive industry that assures availability through profit priorisation imposing land dispossession, forced migration and a threat to the ecosystem. This is increasingly worrying, seeing how Microchip companies’ conflict free certifications are auditing only the smelters and not the actual mines.

Microchip manufacturing requires specialised infrastructure to manage the large amounts of waste generated, such as so-called “forever chemicals”[11], hazardous chemicals, and toxic byproducts such as solvents and heavy metals in chemical treatment plants, wastewater treatment systems, air filtration systems, heavy metal recovery and recycling facilities.

Different governments are leaving unchecked the environmental consequences of the semiconductor industry. For instance, the Building Chips in America Act of 2023 cuts environmental reviews for microchip industries under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA). Meanwhile, the EU Chip Act, aims to achieve 20% of global chip production by 2030. If that goal is met, microchips could surpass pollution levels from current EU aviation, steel and iron industries together.[12]

Evasion of environmental regulations by Microchip Companies

Many microchip and technology firms evade environmental regulations by failing to report certain chemical waste and taking advantage of legislative gaps surrounding the new generation of PFAS.

Reviewing environmental violations by ASE Kaohsiung, GlobalFoundries Malta, Fairchild Semiconductor, and Intel. We see how important personalities were vindicated[13], subject to incredibly low Civil Penalties[14] or given further grants to amplify current plans or projects in spite of vast amounts of forever chemicals being left in the ecosystem.[15]

Ironically, the carbon offset market enables companies to invest in so-called “green projects” as a way to compensate for the emissions generated by their operations. On this note, a company like Amazon can claim net-zero emissions without making any meaningful structural change. Some of these “Green” offset projects occupy and steal land, forcing people to migrate.[16]

Big tech companies also try to sell the idea of mitigating their water usage by “offsetting” water. This trend will likely mirror the carbon offset market, and thereby its violations of human rights. Likely increasing the threat of water and land dispossession from local communities. Some of these offsetting projects make use of force and surveillance. With patrols scanning the area of the project, while also making use of force to evict local communities.[17] This militarisation comes as no surprise, as has been reported in the Corruption Tracker database, there have been cases of governmental aid, agricultural, energy and oil projects that in reality were a cover-up for weapons transfers.

A swarm of 40 drones train in Razish (California) on May 8th, 2019. (U.S. Army Photo by Pv2 James Newsome) Public Domain Dedication. “The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.”

Dual-use and the New Arms Race

Technology is created and developed by humans, and therefore it will never be neutral.[18][19] This applies to all forms of defense-related technologies, from surveillance systems to autonomous weapons and data-driven targeting tools. At the core of these systems lies a complex network powered by microchips and digital infrastructures that enable their operation and evolution. Including at least 608 satellites currently orbiting our planet making modern military activity possible.

In the hands of private companies and states, these technologies are often tested[20] in non-western countries, to later be diffused elsewhere once they have proven “successful”. As Loewenstein writes in The Palestine Laboratory, “It’s about money and being a powerful nation.”

Take as example private permissioned blockchain technology managing biometric data. First the data is collected. Trials are conducted in order to construct the space from which to manage and store data. Then the system is progressively implemented and diffused. In 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) started collecting biometrics of Afghan refugees in Pakistan in order to conduct single-time cash grants. By 2012 and presented to the public as “Sustainable Development Goals”, biometric enrolment through eye scanning was progressively introduced to Syrian refugees in Jordan in order to have access to UN aid, like food, cash and essential services.[21] UNHRC has expanded refugee eye scanning to other countries, like Lebanon, Iraq, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Bangladesh, South Sudan and Turkey amongst others.[22] By 2023 it had been incorporated to 90 countries.

Technology can have different purposes and applications. For instance, the technology that backs a bank algorithmic decision on loan eligibility, is in essence the same technology that uses Lavender, a system which ranks Palestinian individuals from 1 to 100 based on their likelihood of belonging to a group designated by Israel as a terrorist and therefore as a legitimate target. Both examples use algorithmic decision-making and are trained on large datasets to predict outcomes. The difference is the human-made choice of weaponizing their applications. In the case of Lavender, the ranking is communicated to subsystems like the macabre “Where is daddy?”, which alerts Israeli authorities when targeted individuals are at home with their families. Next comes the bombing.[23]

“Smart” features are increasingly embedded in weapons. This is increasingly worrying, seeing how only 128 countries are members of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). The consensus decision-making process of CCW is amongst the nations that develop disruptive high-tech weaponry, which still haven’t come to agree on a definition of Autonomous Weapons Systems and do not contemplate including AI-enabled decision-support systems (DSS).[24][25]

The lack of robust law against emerging AI plays in contraposition to the increasing investment of states to implement AI in their defense strategies.[26] All in all, blossoming a de facto arms race in an unregulated field.[27][28]

Aerial view of Intel Corporation microchip fabrication plant in Hudson, Massachusetts 2015. Photo credit: Nick Allen

Corruption in the Microchip and tech sector

About the companies

Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, SK Hynix, Infineon, GlobalFoundries Singapore, Tsinghua Unigroup, and Ningbo Semiconductor International are all major players in the semiconductor industry. Dell is in the information technology and hardware sector, producing computers, servers, and related infrastructure. Iron Bow Technologies focuses on IT solutions and services. Ericsson and Siemens belong to the telecommunications and industrial technology sectors, providing network infrastructure, automation, and digital services. Northrop Grumman operates in the aerospace and defense sector, developing advanced weapons systems, cybersecurity solutions, and space technologies for military and intelligence agencies.

Reviewing these 13 companies from 2003 to 2025, reveals a spectrum of abuses.

Dominant chip designers and IP‑holders such as Intel and Qualcomm have respectively exploited near‑monopolies to impose exclusive licences, loyalty rebates, and inflated royalties, locking out rivals while securing outstanding profit.

Tier‑1[29] device makers and systems integrators, including Samsung, Hynix, Infineon, Dell, and Iron Bow, have colluded on component prices or inflated cost data passed to government buyers, boosting their margins on public‑sector contracts. In the cases of Dell and Iron Bow involving military deals. [30]

Prime defence and telecom contractors like Ericsson, Siemens have funneled bribes through local agents and shell distributors to win state infrastructure deals. Others like Northrop Grumman have falsely overcharged contracts for battlefield communications services. [31]

State‑owned chip firms and investment vehicles as Tsinghua Unigroup and Ningbo Semiconductor International, have allegedly diverted public capital, transferred assets at fire‑sale prices, or simply misappropriate funds, enriching managers and political patrons. [32]

Managers of the GlobalFoundries Singapore have accepted side‑payments or leaked intellectual property for personal gain.[33] The former vice president of Qualcomm’s Research and Development Department, has been charged with fraud conspiracy, fraud and Conspiracy to Launder Monetary Instruments.[34]

Government buyers and military programme offices often enable the scheme by approving padded invoices or structuring tenders around a single pre‑chosen supplier, expecting post‑retirement jobs or political donations in return. Regulators and competition authorities do levy in some cases fines, as China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) did against Qualcomm or the EU and U.S. did against the DRAM cartel, but settlements do not change the underlying market structure, so offences are allowed to be repeated.

Conclusion

The semiconductor industry contributes to further polluting the environment with its resource intensive manufacturing, functioning and waste management. Meanwhile, environmental legislations are not being able to keep pace, develop at the speed needed to surpass current gaps. In this context, current auditing and the blossoming off-set market are opening avenues to avoid accounting for the real impacts industries have on climate and local people.

Microchip manufacturing is controlled by a few Tech Giants who find deniability in the scale of its activity. The industry is further leaning towards the weaponization of technology. Blurring the line of what are civilian and military applications. While fostering an arms race in a sector where legislation is again falling behind. The dual use of data and tech is both unclear and unsettling, making the humans behind the decisions and processes that are shaping these outcomes, difficult to account.

Major microchip and tech companies replicate corruption patterns that can also be found on the arms trade, such as; monopolistic activity, inflated pricing, illicit kickbacks, and personal profiteering amongst others. Ultimately, behind every corporation and contract are just a few individuals making decisions. Yet, unchecked power, profit-driven incentives, and opaque systems dilute their accountability. It falls to the global civil society to demand transparency and uphold our collective rights in the face of these entrenched dynamics.

Footnotes

[1] Read https://www.espas.eu/files/Global-Semiconductor-Trends-and-the-Future-of-EU-Chip-Capabilities-2022.pdf

[2]

Exceptions include Saudi Aramco, a Saudi oil company, and Berkshire Hathaway, an American multinational conglomerate holding company. Amazon and Tesla have been accounted as technology companies.

[3]

Retrieved from; https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.13481#jrai13481-note-0002_39

[4] Greenpeace. (2023). Energy consumption and the digital world: The impact of the internet on global electricity use. Greenpeace. https://www.greenpeace.org/static/planet4-eastasia-stateless/2023/04/620390b7-greenpeace_energy_consumption_report.pdf

[5] Read https://www.gsaglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/GSA-Accenture-Globality-and-Complexity-of-the-Semiconductor-Ecosystem.pdf and https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2023-05/230530_Thadani_MappingSemiconductor_SupplyChain.pdf?VersionId=SK1wKUNf_.qSF3kzMF.aG8dwd.fFTURH

[6] ASML controls global production of extreme ultraviolet lithography machines. To ship one of this machines to customers takes 40 freight containers, three cargo planes and 20 trucks. TSMC and Samsung dominate sub-5nm chip fabrication, and are responsible for 60% of global microchip production.

[7]

In 2024 Microsoft declared that 42% of its data centres were located on “water distressed” areas, meaning places where water is already polluted or scarce. https://cdn-dynmedia-1.microsoft.com/is/content/microsoftcorp/microsoft/msc/documents/presentationWhile Google gave 15% of data centres were on high scarce water places. Aggravating the dire effects on climate, the ecosystem and the autochthonous population. s/CSR/2024-Environmental-Sustainability-Report-Data-Fact.pdf

https://www.gstatic.com/gumdrop/sustainability/google-2024-environmental-report.pdf

[8] Read https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai

[9]

Consult https://www.source-material.org/amazon-microsoft-google-trump-data-centres-water-use/

[10]

Owen, J.R., Kemp, D., Lechner, A.M. et al. Energy transition minerals and their intersection with land-connected peoples. Nat Sustain 6, 203–211 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00994-6

[11]

Also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are added to photoresists to enhance adhesion to silicon wafers, increase durability, and improve resistance to harsh chemicals and high temperatures during the photolithography process. PFAS are persistent in the environment and human body, leading to potential health risks (cancer, liver damage, immune system disruption). Their widespread use in semiconductor manufacturing has raised concerns about contamination of water sources and soil.

[12]

Consult report https://www.interface-eu.org/publications/chip-productions-ecological-footprint#outlook-projected-ghg-emissions-of-the-european-semiconductor-industry-in-2030

[13]

Case of ASE Kaohsiung https://ase.aseglobal.com/press-room/taiwan-high-court-kaohsiung-branch-clears-ase-and-the-companys-employees-from-charges-related-to-the-violation-of-the-waste-disposal-act/ and https://phys.org/news/2013-12-taiwan-ase-factory-polluting-river.html

[14] Case of Intel https://oregoncapitalinsider.com/2023/08/24/intel-fined-30816-over-air-quality-issues/ or Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/settlement-south-portland-maine-semiconductor-manufacturer-will-reduce-hazardous-air

[15]

Case of GlobalFoundries Malta https://www.sevendaysvt.com/news/tests-show-globalfoundries-released-17-kinds-of-pfas-into-river-41704484#:~:text=Labor%20and%20environmental%20groups%20are%20calling%20for,the%20river%20from%20the%20Essex%20Junction%20plant. https://chipscommunitiesunited.org/news/community-groups-voice-concern-over-pfas-discharges-from-globalfoundries-semiconductor-factory-in-vermont/

[16]

For more information on cases of land grab and forced migration due to carbon offset projects read; https://www.wrm.org.uy/bulletin-articles/carbon-credits-linked-to-illegal-land-grab-and-timber-laundering-in-the-brazilian-amazon, https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/report/evicted-carbon-credits, https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/carbon-credit-land-grab-dispossesses-global-south-communities-report/, https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/08/carbon-colonialism-locals-forced-out-as-dubai-carbon-credit-company-makes-land-grab-in-afr, https://assets.survivalinternational.org/documents/2466/Blood_Carbon_Report.pdf?_gl=1*wvhzp5*_ga*OTgwNzA1NjAyLjE3MDA2NzcyNzQ.*_ga_VBQT0CYZ12*MTcwMTA3NzU2NC4xMC4wLjE3MDEwNzc1NjQuMC4wLjA, https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/carbon-offsets-2023/mapped.html, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519625000865

[17]

Read https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/02/29/carbon-offsettings-casualties/violations-chong-indigenous-peoples-rights

[18]

Read https://theintercept.com/2020/10/21/dataminr-twitter-surveillance-racial-profiling/

[19]

Recommended readings; Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs. and Levine, Y. (2018). Surveillance valley: The secret military history of the Internet. PublicAffairs.

[20] Loewenstein, A. (2023). The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world. Verso.

[21]

For more info read https://edepot.wur.nl/555829 and https://news.un.org/en/story/2016/10/542032

[22]

Read https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/sites/default/files/migrated/2020-01/UNHCR%20-%20WFP%20joint%20update%20on%20use%20of%20biometrics%20-%20January%202020.pdf

[23]

Read https://www.cigionline.org/articles/the-promises-and-perils-of-predictive-policing https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

[24]

Further information on https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/2210_aws_human_responsibility.pdf

[25]

Read https://opiniojuris.org/2024/04/04/symposium-on-military-ai-and-the-law-of-armed-conflict-the-need-for-speed-the-cost-of-unregulated-ai-decision-support-systems-to-civilians/

[26] Read https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/07/governing-military-ai-amid-a-geopolitical-minefield?lang=en&center=europe