Hemispherical Stacks: On Multipolar Geopolitics and Planetary Scale Computation

On April 27, 2023, the 21st Berggruen Seminar was convened at Tsinghua University, titled “Hemispherical Stacks: On Multipolar Geopolitics and Planetary-Scale Computation,” featuring Benjamin Bratton, a distinguished scholar in the philosophy of technology and the Director of the Antikythera program at the Berggruen Institute.
Bratton initiated the seminar by shedding light on the term “planetary computation.” He underscored that this concept is not solely a human invention; rather, it’s a human discovery tied inextricably to our broader planetary condition. He challenged the audience to consider computation beyond mathematical frameworks and view it as an aspect of how intelligence relates to its environmental context. The aim, according to Bratton, is to invent new ideas that can better articulate the reality of our current technology and its implications.