Q4 Executive Roundtable Recap

For our Executive Roundtable for the Fourth Quarter of 2025, Data Center Frontier gathered four seasoned industry leaders to unpack some of the most pressing challenges and opportunities facing the data center industry, including:

Liquid Cooling at Scale — As liquid cooling becomes the default for hyperscale AI builds, the challenge has shifted from adoption to executing safe, repeatable, and globally standardized deployments. While cold plates, immersion, and liquid-to-chip systems are converging into factory-integrated designs, gaps in chemistry, serviceability, commissioning, and long-term maintenance risk fragmenting scale just as demand accelerates.

The Economics of Acceleration — Collapsing AI timelines are forcing owners and operators to prioritize speed-to-market while making capital decisions that must remain defensible over a decade-long asset lifecycle. Modularity, standardization, and lifecycle cost modeling are emerging as essential mechanisms for balancing near-term deployment pressure with long-term efficiency, resilience, and financial performance.

Data Centers as Energy Ecosystems — The data center is increasingly being treated as an integrated energy system rather than a passive consumer of grid power, incorporating on-site generation, storage, thermal reuse, and dynamic grid interaction. This ecosystem perspective is reshaping site selection, infrastructure architecture, and sustainability strategies as power availability becomes a primary constraint on development.

Beyond the White Space — AI-first facilities are evolving into tightly coupled physical and digital environments where power, cooling, controls, and operations are inseparable. Delivering consistent performance now depends on unified workflows, shared data models, and continuous lifecycle integration that preserve design intent from early site development through steady-state operations.

Here is the full question and answer session, organized by topic:

• Roundtable: Liquid Cooling at Scale
• Roundtable: The Economics of Acceleration
• Roundtable: Data Centers as Energy Ecosystems
• Roundtable: Beyond the White Space
  
  

Here are links to the individual Q&A summaries for each of our panelists:

• Data Center Insights: Rob Lowe, Ecolab
• Data Center Insights: Phillip Marangella, EdgeConneX
• Data Center Insights: Ben Rapp, Rehlko
• Data Center Insights: Joe Reele, Schneider Electric
  
  

The conversation is moderated by Data Center Frontier Editor in Chief Matt Vincent.

Thanks to all of our executive participants for sharing their time and insights!

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