Executive Roundtable: Data Center Industry Ambitions vs. Realities

Over the rest of this week and next week, we’ll moderate a Q&A with these experts on each of the four roundtable topics. We begin today with our roundtable's takes on weighing the data center industry's future prospects.

Data Center Frontier:  As we close out the Fourth Quarter of 2024, how do you see regulatory and public pressures shaping the data center industry's ambitions vs. its realities?

Pat McGinn, CoolIT: The data center industry has ambitious goals to meet escalating demands for capacity and performance, but regulatory and public pressures are redefining how these ambitions are realized. 

Increasingly stringent environmental standards, combined with heightened expectations for energy efficiency and water conservation, are challenging operators to balance growth with sustainability.

These pressures are not merely constraints—they are catalysts for innovation. 

As the industry continues to align with global sustainability goals, we see operators adopting advanced cooling and energy efficiency technologies, rethinking site selection strategies, and collaborating with renewable energy providers to reduce environmental impact.

However, the gap between ambition and reality remains significant. 

Achieving high-density deployments while adhering to stricter regulatory requirements will require not only technological advancements but also greater collaboration across stakeholders, transparency in reporting, and a commitment to continuous improvement.

Steve Zielke, Discovery Energy: It’s important to realize that the public and the government aren’t the enemies of data centers — they are the people we serve. They are our stakeholders, our business communities, and ultimately our end-users. More than that, though, they are our neighbors, our friends, our families, our colleagues, and their needs and wants are just as valid as ours are.

Personally I’m encouraged by Federal and State engagement in the growth of digital infrastructure over the last few years, as it will help shed light on the value of our industry. I’m also encouraged by a plethora of community engagement case studies that I have read lately, and I’m especially excited about the developing iMasons Social Accord.  

Phillip Marangella, EdgeConnex: Regulatory and public pressures are certainly increasing worldwide, but it's a very market-specific dynamic. Demonstrating the positive value that data centers can bring to local communities and digital economies requires education, collaboration, and communication with leaders and communities. While some established markets are becoming more challenging, this is, in turn, driving demand for new alternative markets that are trying to attract data centers. 

Steven Carlini, Schneider Electric: Overall, we are in the most prolific growth era for data centers that dwarfs the previous growth era - the internet buildout. IT companies are in a race of sorts to build out accelerated compute capacity for AI as fast as they can while still considering their carbon neutral and net zero commitments.  

Although the data center industry continues to increase use of carbon free power sources and funding the development of more carbon free sources, it has been the subject of mainstream public scrutiny. Data centers are also being recognized as the enabler for carbon reduction in industries like transportation, manufacturing and energy production and distribution.   

Danielle Rossi, Trane: In the last year, we have seen changes in European regulations around data centers. The requirements in several countries will result in penalties if sustainable practices, such as heat recovery, are not included in greenfield designs. In the US, regulatory changes such as the IRA included tax credits and/or deductions for using sustainable practices. To be considered for those benefits, the project completion was to be by the end of this year. An extension of the IRA or any new plan remains to be seen, but traditionally US regulations tend to be structured as a benefit plan instead of penalization. Both forms of regulation are going to incentivize the use of sustainable practice and will help shape designs moving forward.  

Next:  Data Center Site Selection Implications