The center of the virtual world, economically and culturally, may still be the United States, but the work of creating that world leaves a real and growing footprint overseas. American technology giants have established data centers in about two dozen countries, and electronics manufacturers draw on materials fraught with ethical and environmental concerns. Those include the so-called conflict minerals — tin, tantalum and tungsten (and also gold) — as well as rare earth metals that are available almost exclusively from China. At the same time, the rapid cycle of obsolescence and replacement that feeds the expansion also produces a lot of garbage — nearly 42 million metric tons of toxic e-waste in 2014, less than a sixth of which made it into the regulated recycling stream, with much of the rest being broken down by workers at dumps throughout the developing world. Following are a few scenes from the digital life cycle.
虚拟世界的中心在经济上和文化上或许仍然是美国，但创造虚拟世界的工作越来越多地转向海外。美国科技巨头们已经在大约24个国家建立了数据中心，电子产品制造商们使用材料的过程催生了对于伦理道德和环境的关切。这包括了所谓的“争端矿物”——锡、钽、钨（和黄金）——以及为中国垄断的稀土金属。与此同时，过时与替代的快速循环维持了产业的扩张，也制造了大量垃圾——2014年，全球产生了将近4200万吨有毒的电子垃圾，其中不到六分之一进入了受监管的回收渠道，而剩余的大部分则被发展中国家的工人在垃圾场分解。以下是数字产品生命周期中的几幕场景：
Guiyu, China: The largest informal e-waste disposal site in China is here. Workers earn about $1.50 per day extracting materials that can be resold from circuit boards, sometimes by burning or leaching away potentially toxic components.
中国贵屿：中国最大的电子垃圾处理场就在这里。工人从电路板中提取可以被转售的材料，有时是通过燃烧或滤除潜在的有毒元件，每天可以赚1.5美元。Accra, Ghana: Agbogbloshie, a suburb of Accra, is one of the most polluted e-waste dumps in the world. Recently, automated wire-stripping units were installed here to help workers extract copper wire without burning the plastic coating.
加纳阿克拉：位于阿克拉郊区的阿博布罗西(Agbogbloshie)是世界上受污染最严重的电子垃圾场之一。近期，这里安装了自动化的剥线设备，以帮助工人不必焚烧塑料外皮即可取出铜线。
Chhatarpur, India: In the 2000s, China cornered the market on the rare earth minerals that are crucial components of consumer electronic and telecommunications equipment. But India produces around 2.5 percent of the world’s supply, largely here in the Orissa Sands Complex.
印度切德尔布尔：在本世纪头一个10年里，中国垄断了对于消费电子与电信设备元件十分重要的稀土市场。但是印度生产的部分占全世界总供给的2.5%，大部分源自这里——Orissa Sands Complex。Lulea, Sweden: Facebook opened a data center here in 2013, its first outside the United States, and says it will open another nearby soon. Locating the centers in high latitudes helps reduce the cost of cooling the servers.
瑞典吕勒奥：Facebook于2013年在这里设立了其第一个位于美国之外的数据中心，并声称很快将会在附近设立另一个。将中心设立在高纬度地区有助于降低冷却服务器的成本。Democratic Republic of Congo: Armed groups here battle over profits from gold, as well as tin, tantalum and tungsten (also known as the “three Ts”) — the so-called conflict minerals that are necessary to produce the specialized components of many electronic devices.
刚果民主共和国：这里的武装组织为了争夺黄金，以及锡、钽和钨（即“3T”）的利润而战斗。这些所谓的“争端矿物”是生产很多专业的电子产品元件所必须的。Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of China: Amazon Web Services is building a data center here, and other American companies are opening facilities in China, where the government has invested heavily in the development of its “cloud cities.”
中国宁夏回族自治区：亚马逊云服务(Amazon Web Service)在此建立了一个数据中心。其他美国公司也正在中国设立各类设施。中国政府正加大投资，发展“云城市”。