The Biggest Industry Insights From Data Centre LIVE: London

Data Centre LIVE: The London Summit made one thing clear this year: The AI infrastructure boom has moved far beyond servers and scale.

Across two days at Exhibition White City, the industry’s biggest conversations repeatedly returned to a far more complicated reality: power shortages, sustainability scrutiny, security vulnerabilities and a workforce crisis are all colliding at the same time.

AI may be accelerating demand for data centres, but many speakers warned that the wider ecosystem surrounding them is struggling to keep pace.

That tension surfaced almost immediately during the opening keynote, where Rolls-Royce Power Systems’ Vittorio Pierangeli described energy access as the defining issue facing the sector.

“Power is the main bottleneck today for the realisation of data centre infrastructure. The typical construction timeframe for data centres is 18 to 24 months,” he said.

The problem, Vittorio explained, is no longer building facilities quickly enough. It is securing access to the infrastructure needed to power them.

“We are seeing the lead times to get grid connection in several jurisdictions globally increasing to five to seven years,” he added.

The grid is becoming AI’s biggest obstacle

Throughout the summit, speakers repeatedly returned to the same concern that AI infrastructure is scaling faster than utilities and public infrastructure can adapt.

During a fireside session with Data Centre Magazine’s Ben Craske, Dr. Ben Krikler, Head of Energised Futures at Centrica, described AI as both “a hungry beast” and a potential tool for grid optimisation.

“It’s projected to go up four times over the next 10 years in terms of energy demand,” he said.

Ben explained that the number of data centres requesting grid connections has surged dramatically, placing mounting pressure on operators and utilities alike.

“We have to build infrastructure today for a model or use case that doesn’t yet exist,” he added.

Data centre scale is entering a new era

During the Global Data Centre Strategies panel, ABB’s Giampiero Frisio explained how dramatically facility requirements are changing.

The industry, he said, is moving from campuses measured in tens of megawatts to sites operating at “hundreds of megawatts, or even gigawatts”.

That scale is also reshaping geopolitical interest in the sector.

Mongolia’s Minister of Digital Development, Innovation and Communications, Nomin Chinbat, described Mongolia as an emerging destination for data centre investment thanks to its available land and political stability.

The summit also explored how AI could reshape the future of computing itself.

In another fireside conversation with Data Centre Magazine’s Ben Craske, Equinix’s Petrina Steele discussed the growing convergence between AI and quantum computing.

“He wiped around eight billion off the market,” Petrina recalled, referencing Jensen Huang’s earlier scepticism around quantum computing.

But when Huang later changed his position publicly, interest in the sector surged again.

“If the King of AI, Jensen Huang, is looking at this,” she explained, “then we probably should too.”

Power, water and carbon are now inseparable

As AI expansion accelerates, sustainability discussions revealed an industry increasingly aware that environmental strategy can no longer operate separately from operational strategy.

During a panel on the future of the energy transition, CBRE’s Martin Reed questioned whether the industry is yet capable of delivering fully matched renewable energy consumption around the clock.

“Are the mechanisms to truly reach 100% there?” he asked.

Dame Dawn Childs, Director of Pure Data Centres, argued that waiting for perfection risks slowing critical development.

“I don’t think the desire to have 24/7 matched power consumption should stop data centre development,” she said.

“AI is part of the challenge, but is also part of the solution.”

The conversation extended beyond carbon alone. Speakers focused on what many described as the “sustainability triangle”: balancing power, water and carbon simultaneously.

The industry is fighting a perception problem

As scrutiny surrounding AI infrastructure intensifies, several sessions highlighted the sector’s growing struggle to control its public narrative.

During The AI Data Centre Debate, GreenScale’s Jean-François Berche pushed back against misconceptions surrounding water consumption.

“A data centre uses less water than 14 golf courses – we don’t talk about this,” he said.

STACK’s Jamie Allen agreed, arguing that modern cooling technologies have already addressed many of the industry’s historic water concerns.

“It’s a technical challenge that has long been overcome,” he said.

That same issue resurfaced during discussions around sustainability and water management on the summit’s second day.

“The public narrative is definitely not in our favour right now,” said John Bychkowski, Global Applications Manager at Chem-Aqua.

Several speakers warned that community trust is becoming as important to long-term growth as energy resilience itself.

Security and talent shortages are becoming critical risks

Alongside energy concerns, cybersecurity emerged as another major flashpoint.

Speaking during a session on wireless threats, Bastille’s Ivan O’Sullivan warned that AI infrastructure is creating entirely new vulnerabilities.

“Perimeter security is no longer good enough,” he said.

According to Ivan, increasingly accessible wireless technology is making attacks far easier to execute.

“Software defined radios used to cost US$10m and take up half this room,” he explained. “Now I’ve got one in my pocket. It cost US$100.”

He also warned how quickly sensitive AI assets can now be stolen.

“A hundred gigabytes on Wi-Fi 7 can leave the building in, like, two to seven minutes,” he said.

The conversation reflected a wider concern hanging over the event – the industry is deploying AI infrastructure at extraordinary speed, often before governance and security frameworks are fully established.

That pressure is also extending into recruitment and workforce development.

One of the liveliest discussions of the summit came during the Women in Data Centres panel, where speakers argued the sector can no longer afford to overlook large sections of the talent pool.

“I didn’t know this industry existed. I would have chosen it in a heartbeat if I did,” said Lizzy McDowell, Director of Marketing at Kao Data.

Catriona Shearer, Global Head of Data Centre Consulting at JLL Data Centre Solutions, put the issue more bluntly.

“It’s pure maths at this point,” she said. “You don’t have enough people.”

Register Your Interest

If you enjoyed this year's Data Centre LIVE event, or missed out and would love to be involved next year, make sure to register your interest in the LIVE World Tour.

Attendees from sustainability, procurement, supply chain, data centre and AI sectors can gain insights from other experts in the field, with the opportunity to network.

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