Dr Ludovico Rella, Assistant Professor in our top-rated Geography Department, has been awarded a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant.
The ERC has awarded Starting Grants to 421 early-career researchers following a record 4,807 applications.
The grant provides up to €1,437,511.25 in funding over five years.
It will support Dr Rella’s research into the physical infrastructure behind artificial intelligence (AI), focusing on the microchips and hardware that make AI systems possible.
The ERC Starting Grant supports talented early-career researchers who have demonstrated excellent research and are ready to develop independent programmes of work with the potential to become research leaders.
Dr Rella’s project, Thinking Metal, will examine a part of AI that is often overlooked: the physical technology behind it.
Much of the discussion and research around AI has focused on software, including computer code and algorithms.
Thinking Metal will instead explore how and where AI microchips are made, and how they affect AI algorithms, how they work and how they make decisions and predictions.
By looking at the physical side of AI, the research aims to help us think differently about questions around fairness, sustainability and the future of AI.
The project will map the global network involved in producing AI microchips and examine the political and economic forces that shape this industry.
The award builds on research carried out through the ALGOSOC ERC Advanced Grant and support from Durham University’s Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life, as well as in the Department of Geography.
Dr Rella works within Durham’s Synthetic Worlds Thematic Pathway, researching the physical infrastructure, environments and economies behind AI.
He has published research in leading journals including Political Geography, Social Studies of Science and Big Data & Society.
He is also an Editor for Digital Geography and Society and Backchannels, and chairs Durham’s Digital Geographies Thematic Group.
Our Department of Geography is ranked sixth in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 and third in the UK in the Complete University Guide 2027. Visit our Geography webpages for more information on our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
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