The 21st century utility power grid is not an immovable object exactly, but it is a slow-moving entity which is facing an irresistible force now and future forward.
Grid constraints, long interconnection queues and site-specific power loads are leading data center and AI factory planners to seek behind-the-meter, off-grid and bridge power solutions. Some of those will be installed under the virtual umbrella of microgrid integration and control to energize their fast-developing projects.
In recognition of this macro movement trending toward the micro solution, Endeavor B2B is bringing its Data Center Frontier Trends Summit together with its Microgrid Knowledge Conference happening next May 5-7, 2027, at the Renaissance Glendale Hotel & Spa in Glendale, Arizona.
This move unites the digital infrastructure and distributed energy communities under one roof. The announcement was made on the opening day of this week’s third annual Trends Summit in Reston, Virginia, bringing together more than 500 data center developers, operators, engineers and capital providers.
"Data Center Frontier has always followed the frontier — and right now that frontier runs straight through the desert Southwest," said Matt Vincent, Editor in Chief, Data Center Frontier, in a statement. "Glendale puts us in the middle of one of the most consequential build markets in the country, at a moment when power strategy, site selection, and speed to energization are defining who wins.”
Goldman Sachs, Avid Solutions, Synergize Research Group and others have predicted data center-AI and energy development will grow 90 GW by 2030, necessitating more than $1 trillion of power infrastructure investment during that same short period. On-site power providers and integrators moving into the data center space include Bloom Energy, Schneider Electric, VoltaGrid, e2 companies, Veolia, Caterpillar, PowerSecure, Eaton, Omterra (formerly Siemens Energy) and Cummins, among others.
Data center developers are looking to find power as early as possible, said Carl Cottuli, senior vice president, global engineering at Bloom Energy, told Microgrid Knowledge in a recent interview. EnergyTech.com and Microgrid Knowledge both cover the data center power boom and are part of Endeavor B2B.
Fifty-seven percent of Bloom’s respondents said they expect direct current (DC) architecture–as opposed to alternating current (AC) architecture —to dominate in data centers, the Bloom report found.
Because chips run on DC power, data centers naturally accept DC as a source to power large-frame supercomputing equipment.
“That's why the market is positioning itself around DC and saying, ‘Why am I going through all this conversion nonsense when I'd rather just get it as DC, consume it as DC, and then put out the gigabytes of data,’” Cottuli said.
Although the northern Virginia region centered around Reston and Loudoun County is the densest for data center infrastructure location, new-build AI and cloud computing facilities are growing quickly in southern states such as Texas and in the southwest, where the Phoenix region is sometimes called the “Silicon Desert.”
Both Microgrid Knowledge Conference and Data Center Frontier Trends Summit 2027 are preparing their call for speakers. Check out the MGK event website and Data Center Frontier for more information.
