TRENDING both female leaders and male allies in driving change.
Our approach is to support and showcase ambassadors without excessive fanfare, although we acknowledge the need to highlight these role models to inspire others. Ultimately, putting diverse role models on stage is the most effective way to encourage diversity.
What are the prominent conversations shaping data centre infrastructure over the next three to five years?
There’ s immense innovation across all areas: design, construction, equipment and the transition to new cooling methods like liquid and immersion. Datacloud is fortunate to highlight these emerging technologies. Unlike vendordriven conferences, our strength lies in the visible presence of data centre operators and hyperscale companies who trust us to provide insights on issues like higher rack densities, retrofitting, and new tech pipelines.
Demand isn’ t our issue; deployment is. Key challenges now revolve around supply chain and, most significantly, power. Our Digital Infra Leaders Summits, a closed-door event, helps us gauge the pulse of top CEOs. We anticipated the power challenge, which led us to launch our Brussels event and integrate that focus into our main conference. This year, we saw a significant presence from grid operators and power equipment vendors like Anova, and even Rolls-Royce, discussing Small Modular Reactors( SMRs).
The industry’ s priorities have shifted dramatically. Five years ago, site selection focused on land, fibre and water. Now, the absolute priority is grid connection and power capacity; other considerations follow. We’ re actively working to integrate fibre providers into these discussions, recognising that power, fibre and data centres are now inextricably linked.
What trends are you observing in the investment space within the data centre industry?
While there’ s a significant amount of investment flowing into the industry, investors are becoming much more discerning about the quality of what’ s being delivered. There’ s a real risk of stranded capital if companies aren’ t pursuing sound strategies, which will undoubtedly reshape the landscape. We’ re in a boom period, but it’ s crucial to build for quality, not just quantity.
How is the changing geopolitical climate impacting the data centre industry?
It’ s a tricky environment, but we’ re also in a fortunate position. Five years ago, I wouldn’ t have imagined a world leader mentioning‘ data centre,’ but now, with every government and society needing an AI strategy, and AI being impossible without effective data centre infrastructure, there are strong tailwinds.
From a financial perspective, we anticipate a lot of merger and acquisition( M & A) activity. We’ re seeing interesting shifts, such as the first asset-backed securitisation( ABS) deal in Europe with Vantage last week, a trend previously more common in the US. There’ s also a significant move from private equity into private credit, and institutional investors, particularly infrastructure funds, are playing an exponentially larger role in financing and investment.
What changes are you seeing within Datacloud’ s specific space, and what is your strategic direction for growth – more conferences or a more curated approach?
It’ s a bit of both. We receive numerous requests to host Datacloud events globally, which is a testament to the significant effort we’ ve put into rebuilding our brand credibility and regaining our position as the leading platform for the data centre industry over the past two years.
This means we must be very strategic. At our flagship Datacloud Global Congress, we offer a blend of scale and intimacy. While it’ s a large event, we incorporate many private meetings, host workshops for organisations like EUDCA and iMasons, and run dedicated sessions for Digital Infra Leaders and Datacloud Invest. We have large
Annabel Helm, Managing Director of Datacloud, techoraco
keynote theatres alongside smaller workshop rooms.
This structured approach, including initiatives like the‘ Women for Tech’ event, helps break down the scale and ensures attendees can navigate the event effectively and gain real return on investment. We need scale to reflect the industry’ s size, but also curation to ensure meaningful engagement.
Our other standalone events serve different purposes. For instance, our Brussels event is a curated summit, not an exhibition, focused on engaging policymakers, power providers, and data centre operators in serious discussions.
Our third standalone event is Datacloud USA in September. Here, our strategy is to build single, highly influential touch points rather than just numerous events. For the first time in the US, we’ re integrating our Metro Connect brand( representing US fibre players) and Datacloud Energy into Datacloud USA.
This brings together fibre, power and data centre leaders in Texas, offering large conference sessions, multiple tracks and smaller, intimate workshops for focused networking.
We’ re also collaborating with different states like Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia to host state-level roundtables, ensuring we bring together the right leaders for critical conversations, beyond just commercial value. Our aim is that no one leaves feeling their time wasn’ t exceptionally well spent. �
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