The information heart business is present process an unprecedented interval of growth. In response to the Global Data Centers Report by actual property consultancy Knight Frank, virtually 3 GW of recent knowledge heart capability was deployed within the US in 2024, and an extra 11 GW is anticipated over the following two years.
However a severe bottleneck may curtail that growth: energy. AFCOM’s 2025 State of the Information Heart report revealed that greater than 12,000 energetic knowledge heart initiatives are in search of grid interconnection. These numbers are properly past the grid’s present capabilities, with Boston Consulting Group stating that the information heart energy scarcity may quantity to greater than 45 GW.
To deal with the business’s important energy challenges, Information Heart World POWER will deliver collectively key stakeholders in San Antonio, Texas, from September 29 to October 1, 2025.
This inaugural occasion, from the identical workforce behind the flagship Information Heart World expo, goals to foster collaboration between utilities, knowledge heart operators, and expertise innovators to develop actionable options for the facility availability disaster that threatens to derail the business’s development trajectory.
The New Website Choice Actuality
The world’s largest and fastest-growing knowledge heart market is in ‘Information Heart Alley’ – the Washington, DC metro space round Loudoun County and Prince William County, Virginia. This area gives greater than 5 GW of capability, with an excellent better quantity below improvement, based on Knight Frank.
Having expanded its knowledge heart capability by greater than 500% in a decade, the native utility is unable to fulfill demand for extra energy. Therefore, many are trying elsewhere.
Whereas proximity to metro areas has lengthy dominated knowledge heart website choice standards, proximity to obtainable and ample energy is quick turning into the important thing consider knowledge heart location
Keynote audio system at this 12 months’s Information Heart World POWER embody (from left) Compass Information Facilities CEO Chris Crosby, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy, and ERCOT COO Woody Rickerson.
Fixing the Information Heart Energy Drawback
Fixing the facility availability downside requires enter from quite a few people and organizations. Information Heart World POWER has assembled an array of specialists, decision-makers and innovators – a lot of whom are shaping the way forward for energy within the knowledge heart panorama.
These embody vitality suppliers, infrastructure leaders, sustainability specialists, coverage influencers, and knowledge heart owner-operators. They’ve been introduced collectively on the convention to discover the methods wanted to align large digital development with resilient, environment friendly, and sustainable vitality infrastructure.
The present begins on Tuesday, September 30, with a keynote from Chris Crosby, CEO of Compass Information Facilities, and Woody Rickerson, COO of the Electrical Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), who will clarify how Texas has turn into each a proving floor and a stress cooker for balancing explosive knowledge heart development with grid reliability and sustainability.
They are going to pull again the curtain on how strategic collaboration between knowledge heart operators and Texas’s grid authority is reshaping the way forward for energy.
Later that day, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy takes the ground with a keynote entitled ‘Arctic Benefit: Alaska’s Rising Information Heart Frontier’. Alaska plans to comply with Texas’ lead and turn into one other main location for large AI factories. It hopes to lure knowledge facilities to interrupt floor there as a consequence of distinctive benefits corresponding to a low temperature atmosphere, ample pure gasoline sources, renewable vitality potential, geographic benefits that improve resilience and decrease geopolitical danger, and a sustainable tech ecosystem with important value and tax benefits.
Information Heart World POWER continues with a keynote on Wednesday from David Holmes, International Industries CTO and vitality lead at Dell Applied sciences, and Michael McNamara, co-founder and CEO of Lancium.
The executives will clarify how Dell is addressing skyrocketing AI energy density necessities and the way Lancium designs multi-GW services in western Texas engineered to optimize vitality use, allow quick interconnection, and produce massive versatile hundreds to the grid.
“Texas operators deliver a novel perspective to Information Heart World POWER via their expertise working inside ERCOT,” Josh Zampich, director of colocation planning and technique at Factor Vital, instructed DCN.
“Their potential to steadiness resiliency with rising AI-driven knowledge heart demand, whereas integrating pure gasoline, wind, and photo voltaic at scale, presents precious classes. These insights can assist form nationwide and world methods for sustainable and scalable knowledge heart energy.”
DCW Energy: Panels and Power Periods
Past the keynotes, Information Heart World POWER attendees can achieve precious perception regarding various business areas, together with:
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Energy sourcing and capability planning
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Power effectivity and sustainable operations
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Grid constraints and infrastructure funding
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Technological innovation in energy programs
Dozens of panels and classes are scheduled in the course of the occasion. Some will sort out different energy sources that may make up for an absence of grid availability. Others will element how the grid is being modernized and the way energy procurement is completed by hyperscale knowledge heart suppliers.
Whether or not it’s microgrids, pure gasoline era, small modular reactors (SMRs), hydrogen gasoline cells, or deliver your individual energy, the convention will ship relating to discovering greatest methods to meet knowledge heart energy necessities to gasoline the AI factories and new knowledge facilities of tomorrow.
“The primary constraint for AI knowledge facilities is energy,” stated Information Heart World program chair Invoice Kleyman. “We’re now dealing with racks that draw 100 kW, campuses that want gigawatts, and forecasts that world knowledge heart electrical energy demand may double by 2030.”
He added: “These challenges – from grid stability and interconnection delays to improvements like microgrids, nuclear SMRs, and superior vitality storage – are why we created DCW POWER. By dedicating a complete occasion to vitality, our aim is to deliver collectively utilities, policymakers, and knowledge heart leaders to not simply discuss IT, however to align on the facility methods that can make the broader conversations at Information Heart World actionable and sustainable.”
Information Heart World POWER takes place on the Hyatt Regency Hill Nation Resort & Spa in San Antonio, Texas, on September 29–October 1, 2025.
Networking and Extra
These coming to San Antonio to witness the inaugural Information Heart World POWER occasion can reap the benefits of a spread of networking alternatives, together with a pre-event golf outing.
As well as, the famend Southwest Analysis Institute (SwRI) is internet hosting a complimentary tour of its world-class laboratories which might be advancing hydrogen vitality, next-generation cooling, and resilient energy programs for future knowledge facilities. This guided tour will showcase applied sciences corresponding to battery testing and PV arrays, hydrogen gasoline cells, liquid hydrogen, and low-emission energy era utilizing supercritical CO2, a chemical pyrolysis lab and a warmth exchanger take a look at lab.
“AI is reworking the world, however conventional infrastructure can’t sustain. As demand surges from cloud computing, AI, 5G, distant work, and data-heavy functions, the information heart market is scaling quick,” stated Tara Gibb, senior director of Information Heart World. “As organizers of the business’s largest knowledge heart occasion, we launched Information Heart World POWER to unite the complete ecosystem across the pressing challenges – and improvements – in energy, vitality resourcing and sustainability.”
Data Center World POWER will happen from September 29 to October 1, 2025, on the newly renovated Hyatt Regency Hill Nation Resort & Spa in San Antonio.
