Digital dependencies: how Google, Amazon, and Microsoft reshape the geoeconomics of energy

As the energy transition accelerates, scholars have proposed different ways that geoeconomic power may shift towards actors with clean energy resources and production capacities. This paper suggests that in addition to the physical components of energy infrastructures, the digital infrastructures underpinning them are an important and under-researched source of power – and a potential new site of geoeconomic struggles. The winners of energy transitions may therefore be Big Tech firms, which increasingly own and operate the cloud infrastructures upon which cleaner systems rely. Based on a dataset of 500 relationships between Google, Amazon and Microsoft (GAM) and energy-related actors, I show that digital dependencies of cleaner energy actors on GAM are growing. GAM are positioned as central actors in the energy transition, raising the question of whether they will supplant states in this realm. Thinking infrastructurally reveals that clouds enhance digital dependencies, redistributing geoeconomic power towards monopolistic tech firms.