Surplus environments of the digital hinterlands

Digital capitalism reconfigures socio-ecological networks, producing landscapes that serve it in the extraction of rents and circulation of value. These include connections stretching between urban cores and subordinated ‘hinterlands’ that supply digital growth machines with physical resources, cultural material, and informational inputs. I review some of the political ecological conditions wrought by these uneven networks, finding that the notion of ‘surplus’ resonates. Digital capitalism's metabolic surplus – the ‘leftover’ from rifts in the processing of minerals, water, and energy needed for computation – has, alongside institutional incentives, furthered interest in hinterlands meant to restore ecosystem services. These same hinterlands also represent digital growth opportunities.