Vittorio Pierangeli, SVP Global Power Generation at Rolls-Royce Power Systems, opened the summit with a keynote that set the tone for the entire day. His message was blunt: data centres can be built in 18 to 24 months, but the real constraint is securing power.

Grid connection lead times are now stretching to five to seven years across multiple jurisdictions globally — a gap that fundamentally reshapes how operators plan AI-ready facilities. For the industry, this means that energy resilience has graduated from an operational consideration to a core strategic priority. Site selection is increasingly dictated by existing grid capacity, not just land availability or cost.

The Global Data Centre Strategies panel painted a picture of an industry undergoing a dramatic transformation in scale. Giampiero Frisio, President of Electrification at ABB, described a shift from campuses measured in tens of megawatts to sites operating at hundreds of megawatts — or even gigawatts. The implications for power infrastructure, supply chains and land acquisition are enormous.

Governments are responding. Nomin Chinbat, Mongolia's Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Communications, made a compelling case for her country as an emerging data centre investment destination — citing its natural cooling capabilities, available land and political stability as competitive advantages for the giga-scale era. The panel signalled that countries with reliable power infrastructure and space now have a genuine opportunity to attract major AI infrastructure investment.

The morning's energy transition panel tackled one of the sector's most debated sustainability commitments: 24/7 carbon-free power matching, which requires operators to match every kilowatt-hour consumed with an equivalent amount of renewable generation. The concept is widely considered the gold standard for sustainable data centre operations — but is it actually achievable?

Martin Reed, Global ESG Director for Data Centre Solutions at CBRE, characterised the approach as "difficult and uncertain," noting that his firm had achieved 92–93% matching at certain sites but questioned whether the mechanisms to reach a true 100% were yet in place. The panel addressed the tension between net-zero ambition and operational reality — a debate that will only intensify as AI demand accelerates energy consumption across the sector.

Day one closed with The AI Data Centre Debate — a lively session that brought together four industry leaders to challenge misconceptions, tackle supply chain struggles and address AI's insatiable appetite for energy. The agenda covered net zero commitments, water consumption, modularity and the long-term sustainability of hyperscale growth.

One of the sharpest moments came from Jean-François Berche of GreenScale, who challenged the prevailing public narrative around data centre water usage. He argued that a single data centre consumes less water than 14 golf courses — a figure rarely communicated to the public — and that the industry's resource footprint is significantly overstated in mainstream discourse. His intervention underscored a growing awareness that the sector's public communications challenge is as urgent as its technical one.

Key Takeaways

• →Grid connection lead times of 5–7 years in many jurisdictions mean power availability — not construction speed — is now the defining constraint for AI data centre deployment.
• →Data centre scale is shifting from tens of megawatts to gigawatt-territory, opening new geopolitical opportunities for countries with land, cooling resources and stable power infrastructure.
• →True 24/7 carbon-free power matching remains aspirational for most operators — CBRE has reached 92–93% at select sites, but industry leaders question whether 100% is currently achievable at scale.
• →The "Jensen Huang effect" has revived quantum computing's market fortunes — Equinix's Petrina Steele urged data centre leaders to take quantum infrastructure planning seriously as AI and quantum begin to converge.
• →Public perception is emerging as a strategic risk — operators must proactively communicate accurate data on water usage, energy consumption and community impact to counter misconceptions.
• →The summit made clear that winning the AI infrastructure race demands alignment across power policy, sustainable energy strategy, geopolitical positioning and public trust — simultaneously.