2026 Event Schedule

AI campuses are tipping into the gigawatt era, forcing hard choices across three levers: power, liquid cooling, and water. This panel, Hashem Moud (Stok), Bill Hassel (Turner Construction), and Pingbo Tang (Carnegie Mellon University), turns field experience and cross-disciplinary research into a pragmatic 2030 playbook. We'll map how grid-interactive alternative power solutions (hybrid onsite + offsite, storage-backed operations, and demand-flex controls) reshape reliability, capacity planning, and carbon claims. On cooling, we'll compare "liquid-by-default" paths (direct-to-chip, rear-door, and two-phase) through the lenses of density thresholds, retrofit vs. greenfield integration, water treatment and materials compatibility, and O&M realities. On water, we'll go beyond Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) toward true circular use: non-potable sourcing, treatment-and-reuse loops, and adiabatic-free designs.

The discussion centers on embodied vs. operational impacts, vendor lock-in risks, commissioning pitfalls, and disclosure-ready KPIs that connect facilities teams to sustainability reporting. Attendees will leave with decision tools, sample RFP language, and a first-90-days checklist to de-risk AI-scale buildouts while cutting carbon, conserving water, and protecting time-to-capacity. We'll also cover governance and org design: who owns hydraulics, who owns power markets, and how to align incentives across design, construction, operations, and finance.