| Sumario: | The article focuses on the thermal contradictions inherent in electronic capital, particularly the escalating cooling crisis in data centres driven by the intensifying heat generated by increasingly dense and powerful computing hardware. It traces a historical genealogy linking contemporary data centre overheating to earlier industrial thermal limits, such as those encountered in deep coal mining, highlighting a “second Jevons paradox” where technical advances lead to internal thermal constraints that limit growth and economic viability. The breakdown of Dennard scaling in the mid-2000s marked a critical thermal wall for microprocessors, ending a period of simultaneous performance gains and energy efficiency, and prompting costly cooling innovations like immersion cooling, which itself signals a technology cycle’s end. The article situates this thermal crisis within broader socio-economic and ecological contexts, noting that rising cooling demands exacerbate energy consumption, contribute to climate challenges, and provoke political conflicts over resource allocation, especially as AI-driven computing intensifies these pressures.
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