Insights from the Inaugural Data Center POWER eXchange Summit : Bridging the Power & Digital Infrastructure Divide
- Todd Colpron
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Executive Summary
POWER’s inaugural Data Center POWER eXchange (DPX) Summit convened utilities, hyperscalers, regulators, financiers, and developers to address the accelerating collision between data center demand growth and grid capacity.
AI-driven load expansion is materially outpacing grid planning, permitting, and build-out timelines—raising reliability, cost, and political risks.
Former federal energy regulators and utility CEOs highlighted a dual challenge: maintaining reliability while managing rising power costs for end users.
Consensus emerged that siloed planning models are no longer viable; coordinated capital, infrastructure, and policy solutions are now required.
Macro Context: Data Centers Are Becoming Grid-Defining Loads
The explosive growth of AI, cloud computing, and high-density data centers is reshaping electricity demand profiles across North America. What was once incremental load growth has become system-level demand acceleration, forcing utilities and regulators to reconsider long-held assumptions around generation mix, transmission planning, and cost allocation.
Data centers are no longer edge-case customers. In several regions, they now represent a double-digit percentage of total system load, with annual incremental demand measured in gigawatts—not megawatts. This shift elevates data centers from real estate and IT considerations into core grid-planning variables.
Summit Deep Dive
1. Reliability Is Non-Negotiable—but Under Strain
A central theme of the summit was the re-emergence of reliability as the dominant planning priority. As legacy dispatchable assets retire and new capacity struggles to clear permitting and interconnection hurdles, grid operators face tightening reserve margins.
Participants underscored that while energy transition goals remain important,
24/7 reliability is foundational—particularly for AI workloads that cannot tolerate interruption. The discussion reframed reliability not as a theoretical risk, but as an imminent operational constraint.
2. Utilities Are Confronting Load Growth at Unprecedented Scale
Utility executives shared firsthand accounts of how data center demand has transformed their planning horizons. In some service territories, annual data center load growth has increased five- to ten-fold over the past decade.
The response has been an “all-of-the-above” strategy:
Natural gas for dispatchability and speed
Renewables and storage for capacity and policy alignment
Transmission expansion to move power where demand is emerging
Early evaluation of nuclear and advanced generation technologies
Critically, utilities emphasized that time-to-power, not nameplate capacity, is now the binding constraint.
3. Hyperscalers and Grid Planners Are Operating on Different Clocks
A recurring tension highlighted at the summit is the mismatch between hyperscaler deployment timelines and utility planning cycles. Data center operators plan in months and quarters; utilities plan in decades.
Panel discussions stressed the need for:
Improved load forecasting transparency
Earlier engagement between developers and utilities
Market structures that reward flexibility and firm capacity
Recognition that AI-driven demand is structural, not cyclical
Treating current demand growth as a temporary “bubble” was broadly viewed as a strategic misread.
4. A Lifecycle View of Power Delivery
The DPX Summit organized discussions around the full data center power lifecycle: site selection, permitting, interconnection, financing, construction, operations, and long-term grid integration.
This framework exposed systemic bottlenecks, including:
Interconnection queue congestion
Long-lead equipment shortages (transformers, switchgear, turbines)
Ambiguity around who pays for incremental infrastructure
Regulatory lag relative to market reality
Participants agreed that solving these issues requires capital, policy, and engineering solutions deployed in parallel.
Implications for the Market
For Data Center Operators
Power strategy must be integrated at the earliest stages of site selection.
On-site and behind-the-meter generation is shifting from optional to strategic.
Flexibility and dispatchability will increasingly determine site viability.
For Utilities and Grid Operators
Load forecasting, market design, and cost recovery frameworks must evolve.
Capital deployment speed will matter as much as capital availability.
Collaboration with large loads will be essential to maintain reliability.
For Investors and Policymakers
Grid-enabling infrastructure is emerging as a durable investment theme.
Regulatory clarity around cost allocation and permitting will unlock capital.
The intersection of power, compute, and infrastructure finance is becoming a primary value-creation zone.
Where Eliakim Capital Fits
Eliakim Capital operates precisely at the intersection highlighted by the DPX Summit:
Capital Markets & Advisory: Structuring capital solutions and investor narratives for data-center-driven power infrastructure.
Data-Center Power Systems: Enabling speed-to-power through modular, dispatchable generation and grid-independent solutions.
AI / HPC Compute Strategy: Aligning compute deployment with realistic power delivery and grid constraints.
IP-Backed Capital & M&A: Supporting consolidation and scaling of critical grid-enabling technologies.
Eliakim Capital’s mandate is not theoretical alignment—but execution under real-world constraints.
Closing Insight
The inaugural Data Center POWER eXchange Summit made one reality unmistakably clear: the future of digital infrastructure is inseparable from the future of the grid.
AI may be built in code and silicon, but it is ultimately constrained by electrons, steel, permitting timelines, and capital discipline. The next phase of data center growth will be led not by those who secure land or chips first—but by those who solve power first.
Those who integrate compute, power, and capital into a single strategic framework will define the next decade of digital infrastructure.
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