While we may think about the internet existing ethereally in a celestial 'cloud' somewhere in the heavens, the reality is a lot more terrestrial. There are three main components to where the internet ‘lives’.

Data Centres

Much of the internet is housed in physical data centres - which are rooms full of servers that store and share user data and applications.

Ireland is actually one of Europe's largest data-centre hubs, with 70 facilities operating across the country with more in the works. Tech titans like Google, Meta (formerly Facebook) and Microsoft all use data centres in Ireland with Dublin being home to a quarter of all the data centres in Europe.

The Backbone

The backbone of the internet consists of fibre optic cables that carry data between data centres and users. These are long distance networks that can be defined as strategically interconnected ‘data routes’ that exchange internet traffic between the countries and across the oceans. This backbone features prominent undersea cables that serve as the physical infrastructure of the Internet. In 2016 Jersey in the Channel Islands for example, lost its internet communication because a boat dragged its anchor across the sea bed and severed its internet cables.

The Last Mile

This is the final leg of the telecommunications networks connection that delivers internet access the the end-user; its the final stretch in a long chain of global internet connectivity.

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Virgin, Sky and Eir offer the network connections that link end users to the wider Internet. These providers use Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) which are physical locations that connect with data centres and exchange internet traffic. INEX for example, is the internet peering point for the island of Ireland and has three locations in Dublin (Citywest Kilcarbery, Ballycoolin) and in one in Hollyhill in Cork.

So while digital objects aren't tangible, next time you are sending that important content to someone online - a picture of your cat or next design project you can picture it perhaps moving from a very real data centre and whizzing through a fibre optic cable deep under the ocean.