Day One

• Forecasting regional expansion plans: who is planning new builds, where, with which teams, and on what schedule?
• Understanding future data center demand and growth trajectories to accurately forecast space and power requirements, ensuring capacity planning aligns with long-term needs
• Evaluating the drivers behind data center growth over the next five years: how does cost, speed, reliability, sustainability, and scalability fit into project goals?

• Engaging early with local governments and permitting bodies to reduce the risk of community pushback
• Developing transparent outreach strategies to help counter misinformation and build public support
• Sharing how we have created partnership models with community leaders, unions, and local stakeholders to improve project acceptance and approval outcomes

Kickstart your conference experience with a burst of energy and connection! In this fast-paced session, you’ll connect with peers through quick-fire introductions that spark meaningful conversations that last throughout the conference and beyond.

• Comparing land availability, zoning flexibility, and development speed across urban hubs vs. rural regions to quantify where projects can be delivered fastest without compromising long-term expansion potential
• Assessing power and fiber readiness in rural regions where land is plentiful, but infrastructure and labor are sparse
• Analyzing tax incentive, economic development programs, and regional cost structures to quantify the real financial advantage of rural vs. urban locations beyond land pricing

• Exploring best concrete practices for the environment and durability
• Evaluating water-tight solutions for your building envelope
• Achieving speed, efficiency and safety with the most sustainable designs available

• Exploring the critical role of fiber in modern data center performance and scalability
• Examining splicing quality and testing as hidden cost centers that impact reliability and lifecycle value
• Designing fiber networks with the future in mind to support long-term growth and emerging technologies

As demand outpaces available power and land in Virginia, more projects are arising in states such as Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, and more. Whether you are expanding in Virginia or entering an emerging region, join this breakout and share perspectives on workforce capacity, how construction maturity may shape project risk, and long-term scalability in the region you want to break ground in.



Primary Hubs / Emerging Hubs

• Assessing structural and MEP implications of multi-story vs single story data centers and the potential impacts on equipment loading, cooling, and long-term reliability
• Comparing land use, efficiency, and site economics under tight zoning and real estate pressures to determine when vertical density offsets higher construction complexity
• Evaluating the operational workflows, maintenance access and future expansion pathways we built into our designs to support efficient facility operations

• Understanding how stranded industrial infrastructure, legacy substations, and dormant generation assets are emerging as high-value solutions for markets facing long interconnection queues and limited grid headroom
• Evaluating adaptive reuse opportunities across aging office, industrial, or telecom facilities to reduce development friction, accelerate permitting, and shorten time-to power
• Creating a development and due diligence playbook for evaluating reuse candidates, stranded megawatts, and small-format sites to determine cost, schedule viability, and long-term expansion potential

• Assessing contract model options to determine which approach best balanced risk, transparency, and delivery certainty for our project
• Evaluating Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and early team alignment to reduce rework, clarify scope and accelerate approvals
• Sharing best practices and lessons learned for implementing IPD to meet delivery timelines and avoid delays

• Evaluating which electrical, mechanical, and structural systems we prefabricated to reduce labor strain, eliminate onsite rework, and compress critical path activities
• Aligning prefabrication strategies with state union realities to determine the success or our prefabrication strategy ahead of time
• Leveraging early feasibility assessments and repeatability analysis across campuses to create prefab strategies that scale project to project, increasing predictability and reducing variability
• Assessing the construction consequences of prefabricated MEP assemblies: What would we do differently next time to improve our workflows?