“Public bodies, hospitals and industrial operators are today seeking concrete guarantees of digital sovereignty. The CISPE Sovereignty Badge provides that guarantee. It is a natural complement to European standards such as Gaia-X Level 3, strengthening transparency, compliance and digital trust. It is this ability to provide concrete proof, beyond rhetoric, that underpins genuine European digital autonomy.” said Antoine Fournier, CEO of Thésée Datacenter The EU is keen to guard against ‘sovereignty washing’ — claims by foreign-owned cloud providers that they meet local control criteria. Last month, CISPE warned about Broadcom’s claim it complied with EU conditions. It probably won’t be the last to make such claims.

Meta, meanwhile, is continuing its spending spree on AI infrastructure, anonymous sources told Bloomberg. The company is purportedly developing plans for new cloud infrastructure business lines that would sell access to AI computing power and models, putting it in competition with other data center giants. One potential scenario would have Meta selling access to models, including its new Muse Spark, hosted on its own AI infrastructure, as well as running the underlying data centers. This model is similar to AWS’ Bedrock offering. Another possibility is Meta selling access to “raw” computing capacity, as do neocloud businesses such as CoreWeave. This move is part of the company’s internal Meta Compute initiative, the sources said. Like Oracle, Meta has been investing hundreds of billions of dollars in data centers and expensive AI chips. And, according to its latest 10-K: “We plan to continue to significantly expand the size of our infrastructure primarily through data centers, subsea and terrestrial fiber optic cable systems, and other projects.”

Steve Altizer, Compu Dynamics: Integration has to be foundational. It has to start at the first planning conversation, not after the equipment is selected or once the building is already designed. In previous generations of data center development, mechanical, electrical, IT, and operations teams could often work in parallel and bring the pieces together later. That worked when the load profile was more predictable and the facility had more room to absorb change. Before the introduction of ChatGPT, there was very little change to absorb. AI removes that tolerance. A change in rack density can affect electrical distribution, structural requirements, thermal strategy, commissioning, service access, and the way the site is operated. These are no longer independent decisions. They are all part of one performance system. As AI systems move toward POD-scale platforms, the boundary between IT and facility infrastructure becomes much harder to separate. The challenge is that AI workloads are too varied for a one-size-fits-all approach. Training clusters, inference nodes, enterprise AI environments, and edge sites can all have different requirements for density, cooling architecture, network connectivity, security, site conditions, and serviceability. That is why many companies are adopting a modular approach, while others are embracing hybrid models where turnkey modular AI capacity is integrated into larger campus environments.  At the campus level, that means standardizing the backbone infrastructure that serves the site (utility power feeds, central cooling capacity, and network pathways), while allowing the IT environment and the integrated critical infrastructure components to evolve as workload requirements change. The goal is not modularity for its own sake. The goal is to support the next generation of AI deployments without forcing every hardware change to become a major redesign. AI infrastructure cannot be planned as a collection of disparate systems. It has to be designed as one coordinated

The data center industry has never been more visible, more vital, or more challenged. Support for AI and its overall industry impact has pushed digital infrastructure into the public conversation. It has become clear that the sector is confronting unprecedented demands for everything from power to basic infrastructure. That convergence is the focus of Data Center Insights 2026, a two-day virtual event taking place July 15–16, 2026, produced by Endeavor B2B’s Data Center Frontier, Cabling Installation & Maintenance, ISE, Lightwave, and SecurityInfoWatch. Designed for data center owners, operators, engineers, IT leaders, and the people supporting the next generation of data center development, the event offers a concentrated look at the technologies and strategies shaping the future of digital infrastructure. The program arrives at a crucial moment. AI workloads are changing almost every assumption behind data center design. Rack densities are rising, liquid cooling is becoming mainstream, and fiber networks are being rethought for 400G and beyond. Power constraints are now central to site selection. Security is becoming highlighted and operators are being asked to build faster, scale larger, be more resource efficient and maintain resilience in an environment where downtime carries higher consequences than ever. Data Center Insights 2026 is structured to help attendees make sense of this moment. Rather than treating data center infrastructure as a set of separate disciplines, the event brings together experts across cooling, cabling, fiber, power distribution, modular design, AI infrastructure, and operational strategy. The result is a practical, cross-functional program built around the real-world questions now facing the industry. What will I learn at this event? The event opens with “Expert Roundup: The State of the Data Center Industry,” featuring perspectives from Steven Carlini of Schneider Electric.This session sets the stage by examining the forces driving change across the data center landscape in 2026.

Steve Altizer, Compu Dynamics: The defining challenge is keeping pace with the rate of change in the IT environment. It takes time to design, permit, build, and commission a data center. AI hardware operates on a completely different timeline. New GPU families are being introduced every 12 to 18 months, and from one generation to the next, rack power densities can double or even triple. At prototype scale, you can design around a single cluster or a specific density profile. At production scale, that approach becomes a real liability. The facility has to support today’s deployment while remaining adaptable for the next compute profile. We are not just talking about adding more power. We are preparing for major architectural shifts, including the move toward DC power delivery or cooling systems that may rely on two-phase liquid to remove heat at scale. That is what becomes materially harder. You are no longer solving for a single, static deployment. You are solving for a moving target inside a live operating environment. This is where strategic modularity proves its value. It helps decouple the lifecycle of the building from the lifecycle of the IT hardware. Instead of treating the data center as one monolithic design, modularity creates a more agile framework that can absorb new power and cooling architectures without requiring a full facility retrofit every time the IT roadmap shifts. At Compu Dynamics Modular, we are seeing this play out in real time. The value of a turnkey modular approach is not simply speed. It is the agility owners need to keep pace with ever-evolving rack densities, power delivery requirements, and cooling architectures.

Matt Vincent is Editor in Chief of Data Center Frontier, where he leads editorial strategy and coverage focused on the infrastructure powering cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and the digital economy. A veteran B2B technology journalist with more than two decades of experience, Vincent specializes in the intersection of data centers, power, cooling, and emerging AI-era infrastructure. Since assuming the EIC role in 2023, he has helped guide Data Center Frontier’s coverage of the industry’s transition into the gigawatt-scale AI era, with a focus on hyperscale development, behind-the-meter power strategies, liquid cooling architectures, and the evolving energy demands of high-density compute, while working closely with the Digital Infrastructure Group at Endeavor Business Media to expand the brand’s analytical and multimedia footprint. Vincent also hosts The Data Center Frontier Show podcast, where he interviews industry leaders across hyperscale, colocation, utilities, and the data center supply chain to examine the technologies and business models reshaping digital infrastructure. Since its inception he serves as Head of Content for the Data Center Frontier Trends Summit. Before becoming Editor in Chief, he served in multiple senior editorial roles across Endeavor Business Media’s digital infrastructure portfolio, with coverage spanning data centers and hyperscale infrastructure, structured cabling and networking, telecom and datacom, IP physical security, and wireless and Pro AV markets. He began his career in 2005 within PennWell’s Advanced Technology Division and later held senior editorial positions supporting brands such as Cabling Installation & Maintenance, Lightwave Online, Broadband Technology Report, and Smart Buildings Technology. Vincent is a frequent moderator, interviewer, and keynote speaker at industry events including the HPC Forum, where he delivers forward-looking analysis on how AI and high-performance computing are reshaping digital infrastructure. He graduated with honors from Indiana University Bloomington with a B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing and lives in southern New Hampshire with