‘Higher big tech density than in Silicon Valley.’ That's what the Greater Zurich Area location promotion organisation writes on its website. Big names are settling in Zurich: Google, Microsoft, Palantir, Anthropic. What they all have in common is that they are increasingly active in the military sector. And they are gradually becoming the operating system of public infrastructure. In this system, laws and democratic decision-making processes no longer apply – instead, it is the attitudes of corporate executives and the interests of shareholders that prevail.

Is Zurich transforming from a banking city to a tech armament hub? What does this mean in a legal, political and social context? Should public-law location organisations court companies like Palantir? And what responsibility do we bear as an urban society when we profit from these global businesses?

WAV and Republik journalists will discuss these and other questions with invited experts – and with the audience.

Speakers

Adrienne Fichter, Marguerite Meyer, Lorenz Naegeli, Balz Oertli and Jennifer Steiner

Information about the host

WAV is a twelve-member research collective from Zurich. They have been research partners for journalists and editorial offices, civil society and the non-profit sector since 2021. Their research critically scrutinises and opens the doors of boardrooms and boardrooms where decisions that affect everyone are quietly made. They create transparency - so that those responsible are not judged by their words, but by their actions.

The Republik is a digital magazine covering politics, economics, society and culture, which has been published since January 2018. It is financed by its readers and publishes one to three articles every day.

Information on accessibility and language

• 90-minute event without intermission

• In spoken German

• Step-free access