AI, Power & Politics: The Debates Shaping the Sector in 2026

The data centre industry has never moved faster. Nor have its insiders ever felt less certain about where it is heading.

That was the underlying tension at Data Centre LIVE: The London Summit, which took place between 19-20 May. One of the event's standout moments was 'The AI Data Centre Debate', where a panel of industry veterans gathered to debate what AI is actually doing to the sector's foundations.

The session brough together Lonnie Salmon, Senior Director at Jabil, Jean-François Berche, CTO at GreenScale, Alex Bennett, CEO of NTT Global Data Centers, and Jamie Allen, Head of Site Selection at Iron Mountain.

The panel certainly lived up to its billing. All four of the experts arrived prepared and ready to set the data centre world to rights.

Alex set the tone early when he tried to contextualise the breakneck speed at which the sector is moving. "The rules have been rewritten and continue to be rewritten every three months," he said.

In this whirlwind, these experts are trying to parse the pressures the sector is under, spanning everything from supply chain risks to crises of communications. In this article, Data Centre Magazine rounds up all the biggest talking points.

The sector's supply chain issues

If the rules are being rewritten every few months, it follows that the sector's supply chains might struggle to keep pace.

Lonnie, who is a supply chain expert, argued that the sector's focus on price and efficiency has started to give way to something far more complex.

"Within this new environment of AI, the need for orchestration across the whole environment becomes paramount," he says. 

"You only have to look at some of the key shortages," he adds. "Energy is number one. Number two, when you look at the semiconductor industry, you know, 50% of our industry now is being structured around memory. 

"Go beyond that and you start looking at the industrial equipment that's required at a site level. Lead times and that environment are anywhere up to two three years long."

These kind of lead times are only exacerbated by geopolitical issues like the world is currently experiencing.

For instance, 40% of the world's helium comes from Qatar, and with the Strait of Hormuz closed, the supply of a substance fundamental to high-density semiconductor production is far from guaranteed.

"If you don't have the helium, then how do you produce the high density memory, the high speed processing?" Lonnie asked.

Alex pointed to internal execution as an equally pressing constraint. "Power and supply chain are massive constraints for our business," he said. "But how we evolved as data centre operators and global businesses is just as important to examine."

Can the sector achieve net zero?

The net zero conversation is one the industry is having to come to terms with.

Asked how to reconcile the AI goldrush with sustainability, Lonnie was candid. "There's too much money in play," he said, suggesting that while some governments might regulate data centres emissions, like Ireland has, others might allow operators free rein in order to secure investments.

Elsewhere, Jean-François argued that data centres are being unfairly maligned for their environmental impacts.

"What's the alternative?" he asked. "Data centres are big fridges and they're super efficient. If you don't like it, fine. Let's go back to the model where you have a computer room in your building. It's going to be super inefficient. We're not going to have control on on electricity and demand because we don't know what's going to look like."

Alex focused on the goals his firm has set, noting that NTT has posted targets of net zero within its data centres by 2030, across offices by 2035 and through its supply chain by 2040.

Jamie distilled the practical reality to a single word: compromise.

Whether that means fitting carbon capture to gas generation or paying twice for power while waiting a decade or more for a grid connection, he said there is "not really much kind of in between".

The question of water

When it comes to data centres, few topics draw more heat in public debate than water. During the session, Jean-François explained that he has little patience for these conversations.

"Data centres fixed water utilisation years ago," he said, describing the shift to closed-loop cooling systems. "Fourteen golf courses uses more water than one data centre. We don't talk about this." While that recontextualises data centres' water consumption, it is worth noting that estimates from firms like Fluence have the average golf course down as consuming 200 million gallons of water per year.

Jamie agreed with Jean-François, calling the water problem a myth that the large-scale campus industry has long since engineered around, through on-campus storage, private water supplies and grey water harvesting.

"Anyone that is in the large scale campus business knows that it isn't a design problem any more," he said.

When an audience member challenged Jean-François on US pushback against data centres and water usage, he acknowledged regional complexity but held his ground. "There is no data centre that is using water at the expense of the community," he said. "That's just not true."

How to satiate AI's appetite for power

The session closed on perhaps its biggest question: can the industry actually build enough power to meet exponential AI demand?

Lonnie's answer for the UK was unambiguous – the generation capacity already exists, it is just about distributing and storing it correctly.

"The UK can generate more electricity than it ever needs," he said. "The problem is not generating the power. The problem is getting it from point A to point B."

Permitting, planning and regulations are a part of that problem, and Jean-François suggested that it was a particular problem in the UK and Europe. By way of comparison, he spoke about the US's relatively straightforward process. "You go to Texas, you do a hole in the ground, you get gas, you power generation. Boom, done."

Jamie agreed with both his counterparts, suggesting that building connections to power is the biggest problem. 

"We definitely have enough generation," he said. "I don't think anyone would say there's an issue with the amounts of electrons that are in the UK. It's just so strenuous to build that route down to where we actually need that power."