Sponsored by:

Session Sponsored by:

As Europe accelerates its digital transformation and transition to renewable energy, grid resilience has become a critical determinant of economic growth, investment attraction and national competitiveness. In this thought-provoking fireside discussion, Steve Busette and Joe Walsh examine how reliable, flexible energy infrastructure is emerging as a strategic advantage for countries seeking to lead in AI, advanced manufacturing and digital services. Challenging the perception of data centres as passive consumers of electricity, they explore how the sector can actively contribute to grid stability through energy storage, demand response, microgrids and intelligent load management. With Ireland at a pivotal moment in its energy journey, this session will explore how resilience, collaboration and innovation can unlock a stronger energy-data ecosystem and position Ireland to compete successfully in Europe’s digital future.

Learning outcomes:

• Redefining the Data Centre Value Proposition: Understand how data centres are transitioning from passive energy consumers to active “grid citizens” that enhance national energy security.
• The Economics of Stability: Analyse why grid resilience has surpassed tax incentives and labour costs as the primary “competitive currency” for attracting AI and high-tech investment in Europe.
• Technical Levers for Resilience: Identify specific technologies such as grid-interactive UPS, AI-driven workload orchestration, and long-duration energy storage, that allow facilities to support the grid during peak demand.
• Strategic Positioning for Ireland and Europe: Evaluate the collaborative frameworks needed between operators, regulators, and energy providers to unlock Ireland and Europe’s potential as a sustainable digital hub.
• AI vs. Infrastructure: Gain insights into the infrastructure requirements of the AI era and how to balance massive compute demand with renewable energy integration.

Session Sponsored by:

PPAs have been a major focus of recent data centre projects. The ability to purchase clean and renewable energy is helping drive the industry forward in Ireland. Now more than ever PPAs are a solution which will support Ireland move towards its net zero targets. However, there is still red tape that needs to be navigated to ensure that PPAs remain obtainable. This panel will look to address;

• The difference between physical and virtual PPAs and their roles in data centres
• The role of PPAs as next generation data centres demand greater power and capacity
• Challenges around intermittency and grid connections – how Ireland is trying to manage these
• Next generation PPAs as the industry looks towards more onsite power and generation capabilities

Session Sponsored by:

As the industry pivots from legacy hyperscale cloud architectures toward AI factories, the primary constraint on growth has shifted from physical space to power grid availability. Traditional power architectures were designed as passive safety nets, or static systems intended to survive rare interruptions. However, AI-driven demand introduces a new electrical reality: extreme density, continuous high utilization, and synchronized system-wide fluctuations. Reliability is defined by how it performs every hour under sustained, dynamic stress. This panel explores “The Structured Transition,” a strategic shift from component-based design to adaptive power orchestration. We will address gaps where systems appear sufficient based on nameplate capacity but fail under the real-world transients and high ramp rates of AI workloads. Traditional N+1 redundancy often fails to account for these synchronized fluctuations, leading to frequency dips and potential voltage collapse. The discussion reframes the power stack — Generators, UPS, BESS, and CHP — as a single, coordinated ecosystem that can help operators bypass grid congestion and interconnection delays.

Key Learning Takeaways

• Stability as the New Uptime Benchmark: Understanding why voltage and frequency stability under GPU-driven transients — rather than simple nameplate capacity — is the vital metric for preventing cascading failures in high-density environments.
• Accelerating Speed-to-Power: Instead of relying on traditional stick-built approaches, utilizing pre-assembled, modular systems enables true speed-to-power by drastically reducing site complexity. This approach accelerates deployment timelines, allowing operators to bypass grid delays and achieve facility readiness months faster.
• Sustainable Resilience via Data-Driven Tools: The role of fuel-flexible systems (HVO, Gas, Hydrogen) in meeting net-zero mandates. This includes taking practical steps to move from theoretical green goals to validated, transparent sustainability performance.
• System Orchestration Dynamics: How to coordinate the entire power chain — utilizing BESS for transient buffering and fast-response UPS electronics — to create an adaptive response to the violent load volatility typical of AI compute.

A Series of quick fire updates from the DCA and its partners.

Session Sponsored by:

Speaker TBA

AI is here whether we are ready or not. Yet, questions around readiness, capacity, demand and cost are being fired back and forth. The purpose of this panel is to understand what makes ‘AI data centres’ different from existing data centres and how the Irish data centre industry is responding to such requirements and challenges. The panel will address;

• Whether campus architecture can lend support to AI data centre capacity and performance
• Considerations of self-sufficiency with both power and back up generation and also grid connections – the implications on design
• Location as an influence of AI designed data centre projects
• Current thoughts from the industry on AI and next generation data centres

As artificial intelligence rapidly transforms digital infrastructure, data centre operators are re-evaluating how they protect critical assets, personnel, and information. AI is creating new opportunities to enhance security operations through predictive analytics, intelligent monitoring, automated threat detection, and improved decision-making. At the same time, it is introducing new vulnerabilities, attack vectors, and governance challenges that organisations must address.

This panel will explore how AI is reshaping both physical and cyber security strategies across the data centre ecosystem. Industry leaders will discuss the opportunities, risks, and practical considerations associated with deploying AI-driven security technologies, while examining how organisations can maintain resilience, compliance, and trust in an increasingly automated environment.

Topics for Discussion

• The impact of AI on evolving physical and cyber threat landscapes.
• AI-powered security operations, monitoring, and incident response.
• Balancing automation with human oversight and accountability.
• Emerging cyber risks posed by AI, including adversarial attacks.
• Governance, regulation, privacy, and ethical considerations for AI-enabled security systems.

Learning Objectives

• Understanding the AI Security Revolution: Explore how AI is transforming both physical and cyber security practices within data centres.
• Enhancing Detection and Response: Identify how AI-enabled technologies can improve threat detection, monitoring, and incident response capabilities.
• Managing Emerging Risks: Understand the new security challenges introduced by AI and strategies for mitigating them.
• Balancing Automation and Human Decision-Making: Examine where human expertise remains critical within increasingly automated security environments.
• Building Future Resilience: Gain insights into governance, regulatory considerations, and best practices for implementing AI securely and responsibly.

This session will provide delegates with practical insights into how AI is redefining security across the data centre industry and what organisations must do to remain resilient in an increasingly intelligent digital world.

Session Sponsored by: