The University of California, Berkeley Center for New Media’s Certificate in Global Digital Infrastructure is the first university program to introduce students to the technical, economic, legal, environmental, and social dimensions of the global Internet’s infrastructure, including both data centers and subsea telecommunications cables.
It is available to students from UC Berkeley and universities around the world. All classes in the certificate program are project-based and guest lectures facilitate conversations between students from many disciplines and backgrounds. No prior experience in digital infrastructure, computer science, or engineering is needed, and students from all fields–from sciences to liberal arts–are welcome to participate. There are no prerequisites for any of the courses.
Created in partnership with industry organizations Infrastructure Masons (“iMasons”) and the SubOptic Foundation, the certificate offers a broad overview of digital infrastructure’s many components as well as cutting-edge knowledge from experts across the sector. The curriculum is also supported by key industry partnerships with Data Center Dynamics, Telegeography, and the National Data Centre Academy, which ensures the content is in alignment with current digital infrastructure industry practices.
About the GDI Certificate
Above: Subsea Cable
The program offers a holistic approach, covering the data centers where information is stored and computation occurs; the subsea networks that transmit 99% of data traffic between continents; and infrastructures such as Internet Exchange Points (“IXPs”), Points of Presence (“POPs”) and colocation facilities, where networks are interconnected. The curriculum covers components, business models, design/build, operations, and maintenance, alongside the impacts of/on economies, geopolitics, artificial intelligence, and the environment.
Digital infrastructure underpins contemporary economic and social life, yet it remains invisible. This is a problem for the digital infrastructure industries: data center and subsea cable companies are deeply concerned about the next generation of their workforce. This is also a public problem: as sectors increasingly depend on digital infrastructure and services, a basic literacy of these infrastructures is needed to ensure continuity of service, sustainability, and resilience.
Above: Data Center