As demand for data centers and other large energy loads continues to rise, strategic grid and interconnection planning is becoming more critical than ever. This session will explore the growing role of data centers in modern energy infrastructure and the need for innovative solutions that balance reliability, sustainability, and customer priorities. Panelists will discuss how organizations can manage increasing load demand through stronger utility collaboration, improve customer resilience with flexible energy solutions, and leverage emerging technologies to support both business growth and broader community needs.

The conversation will also address the increasing pressure on data centers to reduce carbon emissions and meet evolving corporate and regulatory climate goals. As energy markets and customer expectations continue to shift, leaders must find ways to integrate sustainability into long-term planning while remaining agile in a rapidly changing landscape. This panel will highlight how organizations can align operational performance with environmental responsibility to ensure lasting business resilience.

90 GW of new data centers are expected to plug into the transmission grid by 2030, and grid operators are scrambling to find capacity for them. Grid Enhancing Technologies (GETs) unlock latent capacity on existing transmission lines, often shrinking upgrade timelines to less than two years and saving tens or hundreds of millions in costs.  This session will share lessons learned from US deployments where embracing innovation allowed new load to plug in faster and at lower cost.

This session explores how flexibility is emerging as a powerful solution to unlock existing grid capacity and enable faster, more reliable data center growth. 

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During this session, watch a drone will take off at an energy facility thousands of miles from Scottsdale. It will fly a live inspection mission. The presenters will control it from the stage.

No pre-recorded footage. No simulation.

The drone is a permanently stationed, autonomous aerial system that launches on demand and transmits thermal and visual data in real time. Utilities and infrastructure operators are deploying these systems to inspect substations, transmission corridors, distribution equipment, and large-load facilities without rolling a truck or putting a crew in the field. The same system secures facility perimeters and responds to alarms autonomously. More than 450 energy companies trust Skydio to help them inspect and protect critical infrastructure today.

As AI-driven load growth pushes infrastructure buildout faster than traditional inspection programs can follow, this session covers what automated aerial operations look like in practice: how missions are triggered, what the data looks like, and where operators are finding real reductions in truck rolls and time-to-find on equipment anomalies.

Session Sponsored by

Data Center Energy Value Chain Trend Report
Pablo Gil, Venture Investor, Plug and Play, will present key findings from Plug and Play’s latest trend report, highlighting emerging technologies, investment patterns, and shifts across the data center energy value chain driven by AI demand.

Panel Discussion
Moderated by Reza Khaj, Ph.D., Director at Plug and Play VC, this panel will bring together startup leaders and industry experts, including Medi Naseri, Ph.D., CEO & Co-founder of Lōd, to explore how venture-backed innovations are translating into real-world data center infrastructure. Panelists will discuss deployment challenges, scaling strategies, and the evolving role of startups in shaping the future of AI-ready data centers.

Utilities and data center developers want the same thing: large loads connected to the grid, quickly, reliably, and affordably. But the current large load interconnection process wasn't designed for the speed or scale the market demands. Flexible grid connections offer a practical path forward. By combining firm and conditional service, utilities can unlock significantly more capacity on existing transmission infrastructure while data centers manage the limited constrained hours with on-site resources like batteries, generators, or compute flexibility. A recent study of six 500 MW data center sites within PJM, backed by Google, found that flexible connections increased available capacity at constrained sites by 1.5x to 2.3x, with grid power available more than 99% of hours and on-site resources dispatched roughly 40 hours per year.

In this session, a panel of hyperscale developers and utility leaders will share their takes on flexible connections, what's needed to offer and accept flexible service with confidence, how they impact affordability for all customers, and what to expect for the rest of 2026. 

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This panel will discuss the legal challenges and recent regulatory developments that have affected the provision of energy to data centers in recent months.  This is a quickly developing area of law, and one essential to the U.S.’s ability to remain competitive in the world of artificial intelligence.  The panel will address regulations at both the state and federal levels.  For example, the panel will discuss a recent FERC decision denying PJM’s request to approve a proposed amended interconnection service agreement to supply more power to an Amazon Web Services data center using a co-location arrangement.  Former Chairman Phillips dissented from that decision on the ground that refusing to approve agreements like the one at issue there would “creat[e] unnecessary roadblocks for an industry,” namely, AI, “that is necessary for national security.”  The decision is currently pending on appeal before the Third Circuit.  The panel will also address other regulatory developments and will offer a lively and informative conversation about the way regulations at the state and federal level are affecting the ability to provide power to data centers.