Audio Library

What it takes to deliver a data centre Katie Coulson, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Skanska Advanced Technology, discusses the many factors which need to be considered when delivering a data centre design and build, including the weather, available labour, power and water. Katie goes on to explain how modular, repeatable design and construction techniques and the harnessing of AI are helping to address the challenges of delivering new facilities as quickly as possible for the current AI boom.

Switch to a strategic procurement approach when it comes to switchgear Adhum Carter Wolde-Lule, Director at Prism Power Group, highlights the fact that switchgear is fast becoming one of the biggest hidden constraints in UK (and elssehwere) commercial construction - with data centres absorbing enormous volumes of low voltage and medium voltage switchgear, along with AI workloads, hyperscale cloud expansion and government backing of digital infrastructure, demand has raced into a different gear entirely. Adhum explains that, as a result, switchgear is no longer a late-stage procurement item that can be slotted in once the design is largely complete. It has become a critical path risk that requires early design freeze and early engagement with manufacturers.

Two-phase cooling helps maximise AI performance Shahar Belkin, Chief Evangelist at ZutaCore, explains how the company’s OmniTherm™ cold plate enables waterless two-phase cooling for manufacturers building servers with the NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server Edition GPUs in a single-slot PCIe form factor - supporting full-power operation in standard enterprise and AI cloud server environments. OmniTherm enables a transition to two-phase liquid cooling without introducing water inside the server. The single-slot design allows operators to increase accelerator density in standard server architectures while capturing heat into a liquid loop, reducing reliance on extreme fan speeds that can create excessive noise, waste power and cause challenging operating conditions in the data centre.

Removing a fundamental bottleneck to AI data centre growth Sean Burke, CEO at Enteligent, positions 800V DC to 50V DC as the ‘missing piece’ in AI data centre power design. While 800VDC distribution solves the upstream limitations of traditional AC infrastructure, converting it directly to a 50VDC server bus within the rack addresses the final conversion bottleneck at the server level. Sean explains that the combination of 800VDC facility distribution with rack-level 800VDC-to-50VDC conversion represents a complete, DC-native power architecture that aligns with the realities of modern data centre requirements.

DACH focus delivers for Portus Falk Weinreich, CEO of Portus Data Centers, discusses the company’s focus on the DACH region, with plans to accelerate expansion of their existing data centre portfolio – most immediately with the construction of additional facilities in Munich and Hamburg.

Lyten’s Swedish battery assets power data centre colocation strategy Keith Norman, Chief Marketing & Sustainability Officer of Lyten, explains the reasons behind the company’s acquisition of Northvolt’s battery assets in Sweden, with the site expected to resume operations and to deliver commercial cells in the second half of this year. Lyten is also establishing the Lyten Industrial Hub in Skellefteå, Sweden to co-locate battery manufacturing, data centres, and additional manufacturing activities - with EdgeConneX planning to acquire a data centre site from Lyten, with potential capacity of up to one gigawatt.

GRDs help future-proof data centres Matt Wilkins, Global Director of Design and Engineering at Colt DCS, explains that data centre operators need ‘controlled flexibility’ now more than ever, as tightened regulatory environments, skills gaps, grid constraints, and enormous computational intensity, driven by AI, create the perfect storm. Matt believes Global Reference Designs (GRDs) could be the key to deliver future-proof data centres that are both resilient and able to flex in line with demand.

Industry veteran to help scale Stellanor’s urban footprint Howard Pheby, newly appointed Chief Commercial Officer at Stellanor, explains how the company is building something different: urban colocation that serves enterprises where they actually operate, backed by institutional capital to do it at scale. That combination - proximity, capability, and financial strength – is designed to create compelling value for customers navigating hybrid cloud strategies and AI infrastructure requirements.

Start Campus and EDP enter renewable energy agreement Omer Wilson, Chief Marketing Officer of the Start Campus, explains why Start Campus and EDP have signed a strategic partnership marking their shared intention to accelerate next-generation, renewable-powered data centre projects in Portugal, with potential expansion to other markets. The collaboration brings together large-scale digital infrastructure and renewable energy leadership to unlock investment, strengthen system resilience, and position Portugal as a leading hub for sustainable digital growth, fuelled by the current AI explosion.

Sydney seen as the AI sweet spot Paul Christensen, Macquarie Data Centres General Manager, discusses the company’s 47MW IC3 Super West Sydney AI data centre, in the context of its plans to build out some 200MW of AI and cloud capacity in the city. He shares some great insights as to the challenges and opportunities of building out AI data centre infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region, and is confident that Macquarie’s successful data centre track record sees it well positioned to play a key role in the growth of AI and the wider digital economy in Australia.

Services set to define the data centre landscape Phil Cullerton, VP Services EMEA at Vertiv, explains why services will define the future of the data centre. The future of the data centre is not just about who builds fastest, it is about who operates best. And in this evolving landscape of digital transformation / AI density, tightening regulation, stretched supply chains and rising expectations, digital infrastructure services are the differentiator. If you are an operator, the question is no longer whether to invest in services, it is whether you can afford not to.

Pulsant unveils £10 millionhigh-density investment in Milton Keynes data centre Rob Coupland, CEO at Pulsant, discusses the company’s £10 million investment in its Milton Keynes data centre to provide high-density, sovereign compute capacity to support AI transformation, with plans to roll out this high-density model to other key regions.

Orchestrating a renewable future Wannie Park, CEO/founder of LG NOVA-backed PADO, an intelligent energy orchestration platform for data centres, discusses the power consumption pressures of the data centre sector, with renewables offering a way forward - but many data centres don't know how to effectively manage and embed them into existing infrastructure. Wannie explains the technical challenges that come with renewable integration, why investing in new buildout is not sustainable long-term, and best practices for data centres to operate within existing energy constraints amid slow-moving AI regulation and consumer concern.

Fire safety at scale: protecting modern data centre construction sites Aaron Velardi, head of North American development at Ramtech North America, explains that, as data centre construction across North America accelerates, projects are becoming larger, faster and more complex than ever before – and the consequences of getting fire safety wrong have never been higher. Traditional approaches, developed for early, smaller-scale facilities, are being stretched beyond their limits on today’s megasites. Aaron explores how evolving risks, updated NFPA guidance and technology-enabled temporary protection are redefining fire safety during data centre construction.

How 2026 will redefine the UK’s data centre landscape Mary-Ann Clarke, AECOM’s Director of Data Centre Delivery, believes that developers, utilities, planners and government need to work together to accelerate investment in grid reinforcement and smart energy systems and strengthen engagement with communities to secure social licence for continued data centre growth – alongside recognising the strategic importance of data centres to the national economy and ensuring policy keeps pace with the scale and urgency of demand.

Collaboration to develop smaller data centres for the AI era Ben Sooter, Director of Agentic AI Initiatives & Distributed AI Architecture at EPRI, and Bal Aujla, Director, Head of Advanced Research and Engineering, InfraPartners, discuss the collaboration between EPRI, Prologis, NVIDIA, and InfraPartners to study smaller-scale data centres designed for distributed inference. The collaborators will assess the deployment of micro data centres - ranging from 5 to 20 megawatts - at or near utility substations with available grid capacity that can be quickly set up. The goal is to bring inference capabilities - the process of generating real-time responses from trained models - closer to where data is generated and consumed, while making better use of underutilised infrastructure and reducing pressure on congested transmission systems.

Infinium launches Infinium Edge™ platform for high-density AI data centre immersion cooling Robert Schuetzle, CEO of Infinium, explains that, as power densities of GPUs, CPUs and supporting components continue to rise, cooling has emerged as one of the primary constraints to data centre performance, efficiency, siting and scale. He goes on to discuss the company’s Infinium Edge™, an advanced data centre infrastructure platform designed to enable high-density artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads through immersion cooling.

Redefining the battery blueprint Mike Nagus, CEO of LiNova, a battery tech company, talks backup power infrastructure, UPS and battery technologies – comparing and contrasting traditional approaches and solutions with some of the emerging battery chemistries, which offer improvements in energy density, lifecycle performance, maintenance and TCO. Mike goes on to explain how LiNova’s metal-free polymer cathode is ‘redefining the battery blueprint’.

Building a strong Finnish ecosystem around data centre investments Antti “Jogi” Poikola newly appointed Managing Director of the Finnish Data Center Association (FDCA), explains how Finland has an exceptional opportunity to become a leading country in sustainable digital infrastructure in Europe. The data center industry is growing rapidly in Finland, and in his role as Managing Director of FDCA, Poikola will play a key part in strengthening the visibility and recognition of the sector.

AI - time for a rethink? Claire Keelan, UK MD at Onnec, is warning that the UK will fall short of its AI ambitions and data centre expansion targets, unless it tackles the growing workforce shortage by tapping into underused talent – particularly women and flexible workers. With AI demand forecast to drive a fivefold increase in UK data centre capacity by 2030, and increasing investment from major tech providers, Claire says the sector won’t keep up unless it modernises how it attracts, trains, and mobilises people.

Hot-water cooling addresses the AI power challenge Dr. Peter de Bock, vice president, Data Center Energy and Cooling Technology, Eaton, discusses what the launch of the NVIDIA Rubin platform means for data centre power demand, explaining that it could be a transformative innovation that enables data centres to redirect power to more compute because of hot-water cooling, advanced cold plates and intelligent coolant distribution units (CDUs).

A new benchmark for high-density multi-fibre testing Nigel Hedges, Application and Technical Specialist at Fluke Networks explains that, as fibre density increases and performance margins tighten; driven by AI, cloud, and next-generation digital infrastructure, contractors face mounting pressure to test and certify complex fibre systems quickly and accurately. Fluke Networks has launched CertiFiber™ Max, said to be the industry’s first third-generation optical loss test set (OLTS) designed to meet these. Built on the trusted Versiv™ platform and integrated with LinkWare™, CertiFiber Max enables technicians to certify up to 24 fibres in under one second.

How tier two locations are changing data centre planning Christina Mertens, vice president of business development, EMEA, at VIRTUS Data Centres, explains that, for data centre operators, the question is no longer only where capacity can be deployed quickly, but where it can be sustained, expanded and operated reliably over long time horizons. This shift has brought tier two locations into sharper focus. These locations are not replacing core markets, but they are increasingly shaping how new capacity is planned and managed over time.

Waste heat from data centres could heat over 3.5 million UK homes Simon Kerr, head of heat networks at EnergiRaven, discusses the recent analysis from EnergiRaven and Viegand Maagøe finds that projected growth in data centres will produce enough waste heat to warm millions of homes in the UK by 2035 – if the infrastructure is in place to take advantage of it. Simon goes on to explain how the UK risks missing out on a major source of low-cost home heating if it fails to invest in the Heat Highways needed to capture waste heat from the next generation of data centres.

Creating good chemistry to cater for AI data centre power demands Brandon Smith, VP of Global Sales and Product at ZincFive, breaks down how AI is reshaping data centre power, shifting from steady demand to rapid, high-intensity bursts that redefine reliability. He shows how nickel-zinc Immediate Power Solutions deliver the power density, speed, safety and cycle life AI demands, without tradeoffs.

Sustainable decommissioning and circular economy outcomes Rob Bolton, CEO at n2s Bioscope, explains how n2s has formed a new three-year partnership with NTT DATA to support Virgin Media O2 across all UK data centre sites, focusing on responsible decommissioning, resource recovery and circular economy integration. The contract will see over 40,000 IT assets sustainably processed - reducing waste, recovering critical materials, and help Virgin Media O2 achieve its energy efficiency and carbon reduction targets.

Data centre investment moves into the mainstream Lottie Tollman, Head of Data Centres Advisory, EMEA and Gonzalo Martín, Head of Data Centres Capital Markets, EMEA, both at Colliers, the international property adviser, explain why data centres are no longer a niche play, with EMEA investors increasingly targeting the sector as digital infrastructure becomes central to long-term real estate strategies – according to Colliers’ 2026 Global Investor Outlook. The report highlights a sharp rise in capital allocations to data centres, with the sector now accounting for 31% of total capital raised globally in Q1–Q3 2025 - up from an average of 15% since 2020.

Hyphen architects exciting digital infrastructure future with new CEO Eva Diego, the new CEO of Hyphen, an international architectural practice working with many of the world’s leading brands and digital infrastructure developers, explains how global demand for critical digital infrastructure is reshaping the built environment and shares many valuable insights as to how expert delivery partners and trusted architectural advisors can help the data centre sector navigate complex and technically demanding projects while ensuring commercial viability.

Driving innovation in the energy resilience industry Lenaik Andrieux, General Manager – Power Systems EMEA, India & Australia, Rehlko, explains how the acquisition of The Wilmott Group, a UK-based supplier of critical backup-power solutions, makes Rehlko one of the few OEMs to offer true end-to-end service in the EMEA region. By combining The Wilmott Group’s decades of engineering expertise and operational excellence in design, testing, installation, and lifecycle support with Rehlko’s superior energy resilience products, Rehlko will ensure its data centre customers are supported with reliable, future-ready solutions to meet their evolving energy resilience needs.

AI continues to drive UK data centre market expansion Daniel Thorpe, Head of EMEA Data Centre Research at JLL, discusses the scale of demand for UK data centre real estate driven by AI, alongside the challenges and opportunities around power availability.