Power, Bravery, and the Wild Data Center Future Ahead

By Bill Kleyman, Executive Chair, Data Center Programs, Informa and Co-Founder and CEO, Apolo.us

When the idea of a monthly column was brought up to me earlier in the year, I was all for it and, honestly, quite excited. But when it came time to actually sit down and write this, I must have stared at a blank page for at least 30 minutes.

It’s not that I didn’t know what to say. Because there is so much going on , I wasn’t even sure where to start…

What a wild moment to be in the data center industry. It sort of feels like we are everywhere right now. Honestly, that is a good thing and a bad thing. More than ever before, mainstream audiences are talking about data centers, energy, AI, and all the things we have been quietly building for decades. And more than ever before, it is absolutely critical for us to be positive voices for this industry. That is where I will need all of your help.

Before we get started, I want to give a huge shoutout to the brilliantly talented Wendy Schuchart, Association Manager at AFCOM. It is an honor to work alongside her to bring this newsletter to life.

Over the past couple of months, I have basically been living on an airplane. Conferences. Data centers. Partner meetings. Factory tours. Firesides. Keynotes. If there was a badge to scan, I probably scanned it. Along the way, I filled my notebook with trends, numbers, and conversations that perfectly capture the speed and intensity of our industry right now.

So for our very first AFCOM newsletter article, I want to share those notes with you and explain what they tell us about the future of power, capacity, resiliency, and the evolving role of data centers in an AI driven world.

The Rob Roy Briefing: Power, Nuclear, and the Myth of kW Per Rack

Let’s start in Nevada, where Rob Roy made something absolutely clear. AI is not being driven by hobbyists in garages. It is being driven by multi-trillion dollar companies with customers, revenue, and real demand. Nvidia and Microsoft dropping billions of dollars into Anthropic says it all. While some might say it’s a bubble, I really don’t think it’s headed that way. Just look at the latest Nvidia earnings.

This is not the dot-com bubble where we built networks with no clients. This time, we have the clients, and they want compute at a scale the grid has never seen.

A few big numbers stood out to me. Switch now consumes a third of Nevada’s power. You read that right … A third of the power of an entire state.

And yet, in the state of Nevada, residential electric bills still went down last year. Rob called out what many of us have been saying quietly for a while. When designed correctly, data centers can stabilize the grid and support local energy markets. We can absorb excess at night, shave peaks, and become partners rather than villains.

Then we talked about nuclear. Switch’s partnership with Oklo is one of the most fascinating developments in our space. And let’s be clear, Switch is not the only one going nuclear.

Rob’s message was simple. There is no future for AI without nuclear energy. The curve ahead of us is steep, and GPUs will be working full-time… for a long time. There is no world where this level of compute happens without adding clean baseload generation.

And now my favorite part. And I anticipate where we might hear a bit of feedback from you. Which is always welcome, of course. Rob, in his opinion, called out one of the biggest myths in the industry. The kW per rack number. We all hear some operators quoting impossible densities for marketing slides. But the reality is that a future proofed AI rack can easily pull hundreds of kilowatts, and in some cases, Switch is designing for up to 1.7 megawatts. These are not racks anymore. These are industrial loads. And, you know what? I think he’s on to something. We’re legit just a few years away from completely reimagining what a data center rack even looks like.

What it means for us: education. Rob said he is going to Washington to explain this story, and we should all be doing the same. Maybe not Washington, but your voice is critical in your communities to make sure people know what we do. Data centers are not the enemy of the grid. We are a cornerstone for its modernization.

Schneider Electric Innovation Summit: The Rise of the AI Factory

While at the Schneider Electric Innovation Summit, the message was similar but from a different angle. Schneider showed off some seriously impressive AI factory designs, including racks pushing 142 kW and beyond. Liquid cooling was everywhere, and I’m sure you’re not surprised. This is the new normal. Digitization, automation, and electrification are merging into a single ecosystem. One that is going to stretch the American grid to its limits.

A big stat that stuck with me: By 2030, the data center industry is projected to consume upwards of 200 gigawatts of power, a scale of demand unlike anything we have ever seen. Can you imagine … 200GW of power for just data centers alone.

This acceleration is driven by AI training clusters, high density compute, and the massive buildout of digital infrastructure happening across every region. At this pace, power availability becomes the defining limiting factor for growth, shaping where facilities can be built, how fast they can go live, and how operators plan for long term resilience.

Hitting 200 gigawatts requires new thinking around generation, grid integration, microgrids, and Energy Parks because the traditional utility model cannot keep up with AI scale demands. This is the moment where innovation around power is no longer optional. It is mission critical for the future of our entire industry.

Translation for us: the biggest players in the industrial world are preparing for a world where energy is scarce, data center loads are massive, and predictive digital twins are not optional. They are mandatory. The grid is becoming omnidirectional, EVs are becoming storage assets, and the future data center will be both a load and a generator.

And here’s the future-looking statement on all of this: AI will run these ecosystems long before operators ever see an alarm.

AIDC Arizona: Crusoe, Stargate, and the New Meaning of Resiliency

Alright team, this panel was beyond cool. Let’s talk about the AIDC conference in Arizona, where Mark Milliet of Crusoe walked us through one of the wildest projects I have ever seen. The Stargate campus in Abilene started as two 100 megawatt buildings. It is now eight buildings totaling 1.2 gigawatts. For perspective, that is the size of a small city. And they built the entire thing in eighteen months.

One of the most innovative parts of the design is the star configuration. Each 480 thousand square foot building extends out from a central spine. This geometry is not just for convenience. It is specifically designed to overcome fiber constraints. By centralizing the network core and branching compute buildings outward, Crusoe minimizes long-haul fiber runs, reduces latency, and avoids the bandwidth bottlenecks that would normally come with a campus of this scale.

[Image: Crusoe]

Everything radiates back into a tight, controlled core where fiber can be managed, protected, and scaled without fighting the sprawl of traditional layouts.

Now here is the part I want everyone to really hear. Only twenty percent of the workload requires generator backup. Just twenty percent. And that twenty percent is the network core. Not the GPUs. The GPUs can ride through because of the design, the power architecture, and the thermal storage. This is a fundamentally different approach to resiliency and one that we will see a lot more of as densities climb.

Future iterations of Stargate will shift to 800 volt DC power distribution and vertical designs because horizontal land is running out. They are aiming for 200 megawatts delivered in fifteen months. That is the new level of speed and intensity we are all competing with.

What it means for us: resiliency is changing. The idea that every single circuit needs full generator backup is fading. We are entering a world where we protect the network core, maintain thermal stability, and let the AI racks ride through short events. It lowers cost, it reduces emissions, and it accelerates delivery.

Final Thoughts

Thanks for sticking around … If this feels like a lot, that is because it is. The world is electrifying. AI is accelerating. Demand is rising faster than supply. And our industry is at the center of every major technology conversation happening on the planet today.

But here is the part that makes me incredibly proud to be part of AFCOM. We are the people who build the things that make the future possible. We are the ones designing high density racks, onboarding nuclear partnerships, modernizing the grid, rethinking resiliency, and delivering gigawatt campuses in under two years.

This newsletter is going to be our place to talk about all of it. The good parts. The stressful parts. The surprising parts. And the parts that make us laugh because only data center people would ever understand them.

So welcome to our very first edition. I am thrilled you are here. And I cannot wait to see what we build together next.

Let’s get to work, team.