In this episode, Blaise also digs into his ambitious work with Project Suncatcher, a bold research moonshot exploring how we can someday tap abundant space-based solar energy to fuel the next generation of AI.

Anastasia Volkova, CEO of Regrow Ag, traces her path from a family farm in Ukraine to building technology that helps farmers worldwide adopt regenerative practices. We also meet Brad Zamft, CEO of Heritable Agriculture, an Alphabet Moonshot project using advanced AI models to decode plant genetics and shrink crop-breeding timelines from years to months.

Together, they explain how data, computation, and modeling are transforming agriculture into a more resilient, sustainable system — and how AI is helping secure the future of global food production.

Watch our complimentary documentary in which Brad Zamft takes us first into his lab and then to Ontario, Canada, where Heritable’s work revolutionizing strawberry genetics is making a remarkable impact in the green fields of Tamberry Farms.

In this episode, Lucia Tian, Google’s Head of Clean Energy & Decarbonization Technologies, helps us navigate the race to secure the carbon-free power that will fuel the next generation of intelligence.

We explore Google’s innovative approach to this challenge, from pioneering partnerships in advanced geothermal and next-gen nuclear, to using AI itself to stabilize and optimize the grid. Lucia paints a vivid picture of how these breakthroughs can accelerate a net-zero future while keeping the world’s most demanding computing systems online.

It’s a look at the energy system behind the AI revolution, and the people working to make it both powerful and sustainable.

Tara Chklovski, CEO of Technovation, shares her journey from growing up in India to leading a global movement that has empowered girls in more than 100 countries to build AI-enhanced apps that solve real problems in their communities.

We also meet Aarvi Khandelwal, a 12-year-old innovator who created a natural-disaster preparedness app after experiencing extreme weather in North Carolina. Together, their stories reveal a future of coding — and AI creation — that is inclusive, imaginative, and deeply human.

Watch our complimentary documentary in which we see Technovation’s mission playing out across the globe, and journey to North Carolina to learn more about Aarvi’s passion for technology.

Oana Jinga, co-founder of Dexory, tells us how her company’s towering robots map warehouses in real time, transforming supply chain visibility and decision-making.

We travel to a Google data center in the Netherlands to see these machines working to help manage the constant flow of critical parts and supplies. It’s a firsthand look at how AI-powered robotics are physically reshaping the movement of goods we depend on every day — and redefining the future of logistics from the ground up.

Watch our complimentary documentary in which Oana takes us inside Dexory’s UK headquarters to see the company’s dazzling robots and powerful software in action.

In this episode, Google’s Partha Ranganathan — one of the architects of modern data center design — takes us inside the infrastructure breakthroughs that power everything from scientific milestones like AlphaFold to everyday tools like Gemini.

We trace how data centers evolved from basic storage warehouses into ultra-efficient computational engines that now sit at the center of scientific discovery, economic growth, and daily life. And Partha pushes back against the idea that data centers are simply “energy guzzlers,” making a compelling case for why performance and sustainability are increasingly intertwined.

In this episode, CEO Wendy Tan White explains how Intrinsic’s software makes industrial robots far more accessible, enabling small and medium-sized businesses to adopt automation once reserved for giant manufacturers. The result: faster customization, greater efficiency, and new opportunities for workers.

Wendy shows how these technologies aren’t just improving productivity — they’re upskilling employees, opening doors to safer and more creative roles, and transforming factories into dynamic environments built for the next generation of innovation.

In this episode, Mira Lane, Google’s VP of Technology and Society, joins musician and filmmaker Will Hatcher (aka King Willonious) — the creator of what many consider the world’s first AI-generated hit song — to explore this rapidly evolving landscape.

They unpack how tools like Google’s Music Sandbox and the film creation platform Flow are reshaping creative workflows. Hatcher shares how his “studio in a backpack” helps him level the playing field, making the case that AI doesn’t replace imagination — it expands it.

Together, they sketch a hopeful vision of a future where technology becomes a catalyst for bold, boundary-pushing new art.

Watch our complimentary documentary in which King Willonious invites us into his rich world of constant creativity in New York City, and shows us how he uses AI to bring projects to life in real-time.

In this episode, Gibson explains how his Salt Lake City-based company combines massive wet-lab experiments with one of the world's most powerful supercomputers to create a "Google Maps" of human biology. 

We explore how this hybrid approach is decoding complex biological relationships to dramatically shrink the timelines and cost of bringing new medicines to market. And Chris offers us a glimpse into a future where life-saving treatments are mapped out by algorithms before they even touch a patient.

Watch our complementary documentary in which we go inside Recursion’s Salt Lake City headquarters to see how the company is using cloud computing and high-tech robotics to change the trajectory of drug discovery.

In this episode, MIT professor and author Andrew McAfee draws the throughline from those earlier industrial revolutions to the one unfolding now. He explains how past breakthroughs reshaped manufacturing, reorganized work, and unleashed massive gains in productivity — and why those patterns offer a roadmap for navigating what he calls the “Second Machine Age.”

McAfee shows us why the real impact of this AI revolution is still ahead of us, and what history reveals about what comes next.

In Season 5 of Where the Internet Lives, host Stephanie Wong returns to guide listeners through the places, people, and breakthroughs defining this new era. 

From drug discovery and food security to manufacturing and creative expression, AI is accelerating innovation at a pace the world has never seen.

Subscribe to Where the Internet Lives on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get your shows. 

And this season, we’ll have more film documentaries to complement our audio stories on YouTube. The new season drops in January. We can’t wait to welcome you back.

Meanwhile, only 8% of plastic actually gets recycled, challenging our trust in the waste management system.

But a new set of tools driven by AI, robotics, and material science are helping recycle plastics, steel, textiles, and just about everything else. And a new generation of entrepreneurs, scientists, and engineers are devoting themselves to launching those tools.

In this episode, we examine technology advances that are helping recyclers convert hard-to-recycle waste into a valuable feedstock – and what it means for building a circular economy with a singular goal of radically reducing global waste.

Guests:

• Kate Brandt, chief sustainability officer at Google
• Astro Teller, captain of moonshots, at X, the moonshot factory
• Rey Banatao, project lead at X, the moonshot factory
• Julia Mangin, head of sustainability, Recology
• Emma Lingle, project manager at X, the moonshot factory 

Watch our complementary documentary about how scientists and entrepreneurs at X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory, are inventing tools driven by AI, robotics, and material science to recycle plastics, steel, textiles, and just about everything else. It's all part of their vision to build a circular economy that will radically reduce global waste.

Cutting methane emissions is a critical step toward reducing the rise of global temperatures that climate change is spreading to communities.

In this episode, we have two stories about how data centers – and the AI they enable – are helping to mitigate the invisible threats of heat and air pollution around the world, particularly for vulnerable populations.

From satellites to tree canopies, we ask how AI can help protect human health, reduce air pollution, and temper the urban heat island effect in our cities.

Guests: 

• Mansi Kansal, Cool Roofs product manager at Google
• Dr. Monica Bharel, clinical lead for public sector health at Google
• Karin Tuxen-Bettman, Google Earth outreach manager
• Millie Chu Baird, VP, Office of Chief Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund
• Fatima Luna, chief resilience officer, City of Tucson

Watch our complementary documentary about how Google’s data centers are helping make the invisible threats of air pollution and methane emissions visible.

Seeing the benefits, Dwane became an outspoken advocate for high-tech approaches to water conservation – approaches that could help restore the critical Ogallala Aquifer running underneath most of western Kansas. 

In this episode, we ask how data-driven predictive tools are helping farmers use less water and improve yields. Plus, we look at how data and AI are getting excess food to those who need it most. And we confront the paradox of hunger and food waste existing at the same time, in the same places. 

Guests: 

• Emily Ma, head of special projects in REWS sustainability at Google
• Prem Ramaswami, head of Data Commons at Google
• Stephanie Zidek, vice president of data and analytics, Feeding America
• Dwane Roth, farmer and water conservation advocate in Kansas
• Astro Teller, captain of moonshots at X, the moonshot factory

Watch our complementary documentary about how data and AI are getting excess food to those who need it most, and the paradox of hunger and food waste existing at the same time, in the same places.

Tim McAreavey is the VP of Customer Service at Omaha Public Power District. As the freeze gripped Nebraska, Tim and his team began an all-out effort to enlist the help of their biggest customers to reduce energy demand – including a Google data center.

In this episode, we have three stories about how data centers are helping decarbonize the energy system – and how to manage the growing energy needs of AI. Plus we learn about Tapestry's mission to make everything on the grid visible by using data science and AI to plan, predict, and monitor assets across the network.

And we ask how data centers and the tools they enable are helping communities accelerate clean energy while making the electric grid more resilient, literally keeping the lights on for homeowners, businesses, schools, and hospitals.

Guests:

• Page Crahan, Tapestry team lead at X, the moonshot factory
• Savannah Goodman, data and software climate solutions lead at Google
• Urs Hölze, Google fellow and former senior VP for engineering at Google
• Alexina Jackson, vice president of strategic development, AES
• Tim McAreavey, vice president of customer service, Omaha Public Power District
• Astro Teller, captain of moonshots at X, the moonshot factory

Watch our complementary documentary about how AI-assisted tools like Alphabet’s Tapestry are helping accelerate clean energy while making the electric grid more resilient—literally keeping the lights on for homeowners, businesses, schools, and hospitals.

Firefighters and fire researchers are seeing this trend first hand. As wildfires grow more destructive and more unpredictable, fire experts need better ways to account for extreme variability.

Now, major advances in AI are helping to predict wildfire behavior, and protect communities across the globe. 

In this episode, we examine how data centers enable researchers, policymakers, and NGOs to mitigate climate threats like forest fires, reduce emissions, and enable a wide range of decarbonization solutions.

Guests: 

• Kate Brandt, chief sustainability officer at Google
• Olivia Gagliardi, smokejumper, Missoula, Mont.
• Matt Hancher, director of engineering, Geo for Environment team at Google
• LaWen Hollingsworth, fire behavior specialist, Fire Modeling Institute
• Kit O'Connor, research ecologist, U.S. Forest Service
• Prem Ramaswami, head of Data Commons at Google
• Jorge Rivera, director of data, ONE Campaign

Watch our complementary documentary on how AI is helping researchers predict and respond to fires more effectively.

In past episodes, we’ve taken you on tours of data centers, talked to people who run the supercomputers that make up the internet, and showed you a world few people get to see.

This season, host Stephanie Wong explores how data center infrastructure is critical for making the world a more resilient place.

Over the next five episodes, you'll hear stories about people who are building data-driven solutions for some of the world’s biggest challenges – from the U.S. Forest Service using AI to better predict wildfires, to utilities using AI to improve grid resiliency. 

As communities all over the world grapple with extreme weather, rising energy demand, food insecurity, and public health threats, the role of data centers is more important than ever for supporting solutions.

Subscribe to Where the Internet Lives on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get your shows. 

And this season, we’ll have some film documentaries to complement our audio stories. The new season drops October 9. We can’t wait to welcome you back.

Project Magenta is a research group inside Google that started with a simple question: Can we use machine learning to create compelling art and enhance creative expression?

As an AI expert and musician, Hanoi has worked on many different tools that expand the possibilities of musical composition. And thanks to the underlying technical innovations inside data centers, these tools are getting much better – opening the doors for musicians and non-musicians alike.

Hanoi also won an international AI song contest with his composition titled “Enter Demons and Gods,” which mashed together AI instruments with musical influences from Southeast Asia.

Listen to a full version of Hanoi's music, plus other AI song contest entries. Find out more information about Google's Project Magenta.

Over the years, Mikko has witnessed Finland's broader economic shift toward digital tech, which is now a top industry in the country. 

Finland is a top global producer of paper. But every year, paper demand falls – putting pressure on the industry. Faced with challenges in the pulp and paper industry, Finland is pursuing new forms of economic development. Data centers are one opportunity. 

For over a decade, Google has been operating a data center in Hamina, Finland, at an abandoned paper mill. The company has invested €2 billion in the Hamina data center and related network infrastructure – and hired workers who were formerly employed in paper production.

Learn more about Google's investments in communities like Hamina.

Oregon Tradeswomen is an organization devoted to helping women like Sarah build careers in construction, manufacturing, mechanical, and utility trades. In 2022, Google gave $150,000 to the organization to support diversifying these industries. It's part of a multi-state effort at Google to support programs that elevate tradeswomen – some of whom will eventually build data centers.

Sarah has faced many obstacles in her life: homelessness, drug addiction, and a life-threatening tumor. Her new career in the construction trade has helped her overcome many of those difficulties. 

Learn more about the Oregon Tradeswomen program.

Pumping and diverting and blocking water is what made the Netherlands possible, turning it into a vital European trading hub and top agricultural exporter. But now, the masters of controlling water are facing a new challenge: worsening drought.

That’s why Google partnered with North Water, a Dutch water treatment company, to harness water from a network of canals to cool its data center. 

The €‎45-million project featured construction of a pipeline that can carry 10 million cubic meters of water each year to the data center. It also required a new treatment plant to treat and filter the water. The project illustrates the creative, sustainable methods for cooling data centers that Google is deploying around the world.

Learn more about Google’s partnership with North Water and Google’s water sustainability commitments. After you listen to the episode, watch a short documentary film about the project here. 

Ian is an operations engineer at Google’s data center in Changhua County, Taiwan. He ensures that management and training processes run effectively inside the facility. He is also one of the coordinators of the largest Gay Pride parade in East Asia.

Over the last decade, Ian has witnessed – and influenced – dramatic change in the politics around same-sex rights in Taiwan. 

Learn more about Google’s data center operations in Taiwan. Read about Google’s support of the LGBTQ+ community.

Data centers are the latest in a long list of big projects that Dave Moody has tackled over three decades running a construction company. But as an aspiring Black architect, he didn’t know if he’d ever have the same opportunities as his white counterparts.

Racial disparities didn’t stop him. Dave started with a single $88,000 contract in the late 1980s and grew his company, CD Moody Construction, to build museums, stadiums, and airport terminals.

As his business expanded, Dave had to face a personal trauma head-on – reckoning with the memories of childhood sexual abuse – and learn to live his life as a healed person, not just a survivor. That allowed him to seize on new opportunities, like when Google came looking for help with data center construction in Georgia. It also allowed him to become a model and mentor for others.

Learn more about Google’s supplier diversity program. After you listen to the episode, watch a short documentary film about Dave and his journey  here.

That growth is made possible by sophisticated manufacturing, maturing business models, and fast-dropping costs. It’s also increasingly enabled by artificial intelligence – and the data centers that power it.

Samuel Adeyemo is the co-founder of Aurora Solar, a company using AI to quickly model and execute millions of rooftop solar projects. Aurora partners with Google’s Project Sunroof to integrate vast geospatial data sets into the software.

As the digital tools behind solar get more sophisticated, data centers have the potential to be the backbone of the clean energy economy.

Learn how Project Sunroof is enabling more solar. To discover how data centers are  supporting clean energy around the globe, check out Google's 24/7 carbon-free energy mission.

Today, communities like Lenoir are often seen as great sites for data centers because of their strong industrial histories. In 2007, Google built a $1.2 billion data center a mile outside of Lenoir, creating over a thousand jobs to date – hundreds in construction, and hundreds of permanent jobs in operations. Since then, the region has attracted more data centers from other top tech, retail, and entertainment companies. 

Intimately experienced with the ups and downs of Lenoir's economic transformation, Rachel is part of Lenoir's new generation of workers who are employed at a data center rather than in the furniture industry.

Learn more

 about career opportunities and Google’s investments in communities like Lenoir.

Clarksville, where Google has a data center, is home to a fragile ecosystem that has vanished across America: grasslands. What if we could use large campuses like data centers to transform land back into long-lost prairies – restoring ecological diversity and an important piece of American history? Dwayne Estes of the Southeastern Grasslands Institute is dedicating his life to making that a reality.

After you listen to the episode, watch the documentary about grasslands restoration at Google’s data center.

Over the last two seasons, we’ve introduced you to the technologies and people that run data centers, unveiling a world few people get to see.

This season, host Stephanie Wong explores how data centers change the world around them in surprising and transformative ways.

We’ll hear stories about economic transformations, technological leaps, human rights, equity, and environmental progress – all enabled by data centers. 

Subscribe to Where the Internet Lives on Google podcasts, Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get your shows.

It takes a vast collection of switches, cables, and software control systems to create a well-functioning global network. It is Bikash Koley’s job to connect Google’s fleet of data centers – and make that connection seamless and invisible to users.

Growing up in India, Bikash first used a computer in high school. It didn’t take him long to get hooked on the concept of networking. 

Today, as VP and head of global networking, he directs a team of architects who design and build a network that can withstand traffic surges, natural disasters, and a global pandemic. He and his team work at the forefront of networking technologies that keep the internet humming.

Learn more about building your career at a data center.

From the moment Majd played with his first computer as a kid growing up in Syria, he has pursued a mission of making tech intuitive and accessible.

Today, Majd uses his design expertise and biomedical engineering background to focus on personal health at Fitbit – and data centers are more important than ever to his work. 

Learn more about building your career at a data center.

Andreas is a data center technician and the maintenance lead at Google's Eemshaven data center in the Netherlands. Every day, he and his team weave through aisles of server racks, making sure all the computers are running optimally.

To become an expert at fixing computers, Andreas first had to become an expert at taking them apart. 

Today, Andreas leads a team that makes sure data center maintenance gets done on time and up to quality standards. But he never loses sight of his inner kid – and a passion for cracking open a computer himself to see what needs fixing. 

Learn more about building your career at a data center.

For Sarah, construction is a family affair. Growing up, she watched her father build schools, car washes, and office buildings. 

After getting her engineering degree, Sarah realized that she wanted to work on projects with immediate and tangible outcomes. And that led her to oversee construction of Google's data centers in Northern Virginia. As a program manager, she literally helps build new data centers from the ground up. 

Learn more about building your career at a data center.

Teams across Google have been working intensively for more than a decade to use water as responsibly as possible. And in September 2021, Google unveiled a comprehensive plan to replenish 120% of the water it consumes, and improve the quality of water ecosystems in the places where it operates. 

Tara Varghese’s job is to make sure Google hits that target. 

Water conservation was an important part of Tara’s upbringing from an early age. Today, she leads Google’s corporate water stewardship efforts, and helps shape the company’s strategy for siting data centers and office buildings around the world. 

Learn more about building your career at a data center.

In that role, he addresses the staffing needs of a data center, which are as complex and diverse as the technology itself. Each facility needs the right mix of server technicians, mechanical engineers, networking experts, security staff, and many other specialists.

Calling on his experiences from a variety of occupations, "D" pulls together the right folks to make things work, building a team that devises simple solutions to complicated challenges inside data centers.

Learn more about building your career at a data center.

Juliana Conroy-Hoey is a mechanical engineer for Google data centers in Europe. 

She determines how to lay out the pipes and ductwork inside data centers for maximum efficiency and sustainability – the scale of which still gives her a sense of awe.

Learn more about building your career at a data center.

Libby manages security at Google's data centers in Iowa. She runs a large team that monitors every movement inside the facilities – from the outer walls, to the inner sanctum where the servers sit. 

Libby melded her background in law enforcement, engineering, and organizational psychology to secure one of Google’s largest pieces of computing infrastructure: a data center. 

Learn more about building your career at a data center. 

Kenny “KP” Philpot is an environmental health and safety program manager at Google's Douglas County data center outside Atlanta. 

Before running around the floors of data centers, KP was running around the football field, playing for the Detroit Lions. And before playing professional football, he learned hard lessons while growing up on the South Side of Chicago.

Today, he helps make sure that vast pieces of data center infrastructure – and the technicians, electricians, and mechanical engineers who manage them – are safe and sound.

Learn more about building your career at a data center. 

Understanding how all these pieces fit together requires seeing the details and the big picture at the same time – something that Damian Diaz has done all his life, ever since he was a teenager fixing handheld radios in Cuba. 

Damian fled Cuba to seek political asylum. His journey brought him across the ocean and desert, and pushed him to the verge of homelessness. Today, he’s a facilities technician at Google’s data center in New Albany, Ohio – where he helps keep internet services up and running worldwide. 

Learn more about building your career at a data center.

In our second season, host Stephanie Wong explores data centers alongside the folks who actually design, build, and operate them. 

We’ll hear stories of people who’ve transformed their careers, overcome obstacles, and found inspiration working in the places where the internet lives.

Subscribe to Where the Internet Lives on Google podcasts, Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get your shows.

In this series, we’ll go inside a data center and learn how the machines actually work. 

We’ll hear about the early days of Google’s first data center designs — and how they set the stage for today’s hyper-scale facilities. 

We’ll learn about how data centers are becoming a backbone of the clean energy economy. 

And we’ll explore how quantum computing, the end of Moore’s law, and new uses of the Cloud are changing the way we build the physical internet.