Скачать или смотреть Conference Preview: Inside the Data Center Frontier Trends Summit 2025

Power Moves, AI Factories, and Moonshots to Watch

In this special-edition DCF QuickChat discussion, Data Center Frontier Editor in Chief Matt Vincent and Contributing Editor Bill Kleyman, CEO of Apolo and noted industry figure, look forward to discussions set for the 2nd annual Data Center Frontier Trends Summit (Aug. 26-28) in Reston, VA.

Here’s your companion guide to the Trends Summit 2025 agenda: a curated tour of the key sessions, standout speakers, and emerging priorities at the heart of the next data center frontier.

📘 Day 1: A New Playbook Begins (Tuesday, August 26)
🔑 Opening Keynote: “Playbook Interrupted”
Chris Downie, CEO of Flexential, kicks off the event with a keynote that pulls no punches. Power scarcity, global policy, and AI’s ravenous infrastructure appetite are cracking old strategies wide open. Downie will chart out the new mandates facing operators, where infrastructure is not just a support system—it’s the bottleneck and the breakthrough.

🤖 AI for Good: Smarter Data Centers and Smarter AI Workloads
What happens when Schneider Electric, Compass Datacenters, and Motivair sit down to talk AI? You get both sides of the coin—AI for data centers (via predictive maintenance, energy optimization) and data centers for AI (validated reference designs and liquid-cooled GPU clusters). A standout session on future-proofing both infrastructure and operations.

Speakers:
Steve Carlini (Schneider Electric),
Sudhir Kalra (Compass),
Andrew Whitmore (Motivair)

⚡ Bridging the Power Gap
The most immediate constraint for every operator? Power procurement. This stacked panel—featuring Bloom, Dominion, Constellation, and Loudoun County—explores how to solve the power delivery timeline mismatch. Expect strategies for co-siting with generation assets, improving transparency, and enabling build-to-power synchronization.

Speakers:
Buddy Rizer, Bob Kinscherf, Stan Blackwell, Joel Jansen, Jeff Barber, David McCall

🔁 Adaptive Reuse Meets AI Demand
One of the summit’s most pragmatic sessions. JLL's VP of Data Center Strategy and executive experts from adaptively-oriented operators Aligned Data Centers and Northstar tackle how to transform old industrial sites into AI-scale GPU hubs—fast. It’s where brownfield ingenuity as increasingly furnished by Schneider Electric meets hyperscale ambition.

Confirmed Speakers:
Sean Farney (JLL), Tony Grayson (Compass), Lovisa Tedestedt (Schneider Electric), Phill Lawson-Shanks (Aligned Data Centers)

🔥 Natural Gas, Fast Tracks, and the Off-Grid Pivot
The panel on natural gas is a can’t-miss for anyone serious about site viability in constrained regions. With perspectives from CBRE, Oracle, Solar Turbines, and PointOne, this is the real-world look at alternative power timelines and why public sentiment still matters.

🌐 Edge, Interconnection, and the New Digital Perimeter
As edge and AI converge, interconnection becomes existential. From DartPoints to Duos Edge AI, this session explores what it means to build not just at the edge, but with the edge in mind.

Moderator: Scott Bergs (DF&I)
Panelists: DartPoints, 1623 Farnam, 365 Data Centers, Duos Edge AI, ValorC3

⚙️ Day 2: Factories, Agents, and Innovation Culture (Wednesday, August 27)
🧱 AI Factories Are the New Data Centers
Kleyman leads the charge on this one, joined by Applied Digital, Scott Data, Lambda, and Equus Compute. These are the folks actually building GPU-scale facilities. They’ll cover liquid cooling, bandwidth fabrics, and how AI-as-a-service is shaping revenue models.

Panelists: Wes Cummins, Ken Patchett, Patrick Pedroso, Kenneth Moreano

🔄 Modernizing the Supply Chain with Agentic Systems
CargoSense and Google Logistics go deep on real-time IoT visibility, AI agents in procurement, and closing the gap between delivery and commissioning. Essential viewing for anyone managing hyperscale timelines.

Speakers: Richard Kilmer, Patrick Huston

📍 Site Selection: ESG, Power Access, and Political Will
PowerHouse, Aligned, datacenterHawk, and others weigh in on how shifting local regulations, financing hurdles, and ESG mandates are redefining the map.

💧 Smarter Cooling for Smarter Density
Mechanical infrastructure becomes a differentiator in this session with Johnson Controls, CleanArc, and Harris Company. Expect strategies on higher leaving water temps, low-sound urban compliance, and preventing thermal failure in liquid-to-chip setups.

⚡ From Grid to Onsite: Building Power Behind the Meter
One of the show’s most hotly anticipated panels. Hydrogen, microgrids, SMRs, turbines, renewables—it’s all here. The new calculus: how to build resilient power fast, on-site, and at scale.

Speakers: Yuval Bachar (ECL), Brian Gitt (Oklo), Steve Halford (GE Vernova), Wes Swenson (Novva), Marty Trivette (Alphastruxure)

DCF Trends Summit Full Agenda: https://www.dcftrends.com/2025/confer...