Yes I believe it is to the Kobo servers.
New books I buy from Kobo, bookmarks etc. I am one of those people that every month the sync stops working and it can drain the battery from 90% to 10% in 30min. I usually have to delete the larger collections to get it working again.
Made a script that turns off the wifi after a certain amount of time, and would like to streamline the process and include starting the sync, as it takes a several more steps to start the sync while reading a book.
Even if it not possible that would be great to know so I can get this monkey off my back!