Datacloud USA 2026: AI Data Center Leaders And Investors Head To Austin From September 1-3

Datacloud USA returns to the Austin Marriott Downtown in Austin, Texas, on September 1-3, 2026, and Hedge Fund Alpha readers can attend at a discount. Billed as the event “where US data centers are built, connected, and powered,” Datacloud USA brings together the leaders of American digital infrastructure – hyperscalers, data center operators, neoclouds, fiber companies, energy firms, and the investors behind them.

The 2026 edition is expected to bring together 3,000+ senior leaders from more than 1,000 companies, with roughly 70% of attendees at the C-level, VP, or Director level. The program tackles the themes at the center of the AI infrastructure buildout: power constraints and behind-the-meter generation, nuclear energy, AI demand evolution, capital deployment, cooling technology, and policy and permitting.

For investors, this is the flagship event in the Datacloud series. The Investment & Finance Forum and the investment sessions on the main stages feature speakers from Apollo Global Management, Global Infrastructure Partners (part of BlackRock), Stonepeak, Searchlight Capital, Grain Management, Novacap, Safanad, Generate Capital, TDK Ventures, Moelis, Bank Street Group, and DigitalBridge, covering everything from LP capital allocation and evolving financing structures to digital infrastructure ABS and the M&A consolidation wave.

One pass also covers the co-located tracks running alongside the main Datacloud USA program in Austin: Datacloud Energy (a dedicated stage on powering data centers), Metro Connect Fall (fiber and connectivity), the Investment & Finance Forum, and a series of summits, forums, and meetups including the Nuclear for AI Forum and the Neocloud Summit. These are tagged in the agenda below.

Save 10% With Our Discount Code

Hedge Fund Alpha has partnered with Datacloud USA to offer our readers 10% off the pass price. Use the code HEDGEFUNDALPHA10 when you register at datacloud-usa.com.

Agenda

Below is the current agenda across the three days (session titles and speakers only; times, stages, and session descriptions are available on the official agenda page). Sessions belonging to the co-located tracks are tagged, e.g. [Datacloud Energy] or [Metro Connect Fall].

Tuesday, September 1, 2026

• Golf Day (limited to 70 participants)
• Nuclear for AI Forum (by invitation only) [Summits & Forums] – Brian Smith, Mark Gusakov, Brian Gitt
• Fiber Leaders Forum & Networking lunch (by invitation only) [Summits & Forums]
• Digital Infrastructure Leaders’ Summit (by invitation only) [Summits & Forums]
• Department of Energy – Project Uprise (open to all) [Summits & Forums] – Brian Smith
• iMasons Veterans Meet-Up [Meetups & Workshops]
• Registration opens
• Talent in Digital Infrastructure Meet & Greet [Meetups & Workshops] (Moderator: Susanna Kass)
• Welcome Drinks Reception
• Meeting room key collection

Wednesday, September 2, 2026

• Breakfast Workshop [Meetups & Workshops]
• West Texas Gas Workshop (invitation only) [Meetups & Workshops]
• Opening Remarks – techoraco
• Datacloud USA Stage Live Stream [Datacloud Energy, Metro Connect Fall]
• Opening Address
• Keynote Address – Marc Ganzi
• Keynote Fireside: AI data centers – From the view of a hyperscaler (Moderator: Susanna Kass)
• Keynote panel: Flexible, Reliable, Scalable – Building and operating future-proofed AI-ready data centers – Sachin Jain, Piotr Tomasik, Lindsey Bruner, Mike Parks, John Eland
• Conference chair’s welcome remarks [Metro Connect Fall] (Moderator: Andrew Lipman)
• Talent in Digital Infrastructure Workshop [Meetups & Workshops] – Jason Black (Moderator: Susanna Kass)
• Keynote panel: Are today’s networks fit for an inference-led world? [Metro Connect Fall] – Dan Davis, Dave Schaeffer, Maneesh Gauba
• Keynote panel: Behind-the-meter and on-time – The BYOP playbook for 2026 – Sean James, Colin McLean, Risto Paldanius, David Bell, Emilio Vicens (Moderator: Mark Brasher)
• Panel: Fast-track delivery – Constructing data centers at scale and pace – Matt Coffel, Navid Ariaban, Jeff Ivey, Ellen Yang, Roxanne Copass
• Panel: From forecast to reality – Mapping long-term data center power demand [Datacloud Energy] – Vibhu Kaushik, John Chesser, Todd Hillman, Buddy Rizer, Omar Aoun (Moderator: Colby Cox)
• Panel: Rewriting the fibre growth playbook – Delivering fiber for the AI age [Metro Connect Fall] – Joel Ogren, Kevin Coyne, Justin Melnikoff, Joe Baeumel, Sophie Legault (Moderator: Nico Walters)
• Networking lunch available [Metro Connect Fall]
• Lunch and Networking [Investment and Finance Forum]
• Women in Digital Infrastructure Lunch [Meetups & Workshops]
• FTTH community meetup [Meetups & Workshops]
• Panel: Keeping it cool – Evaluating air, liquid and hybrid approaches for high density workloads – Jon Malpass, Josh Claman
• Panel: Grid-lock – Strategies and technologies for bypassing the power availability bottleneck [Datacloud Energy] – Ilya Tabakh, Justin Jordan, Brad Richter, Craig Noxon
• Lunch
• Presentation: State of the market address [Investment and Finance Forum] – Bora Goekbora, Clark O’Neil
• Panel: How are LPs allocating capital to digital infrastructure in the AI era? [Investment and Finance Forum]
• Presentation: Top 10 Data Center Trends in 2026 – Jeffrey Moerdler
• Presentation: The Power Behind AI – Grid-Free Power. Always On. [Datacloud Energy] – Theo Lorentzos
• Panel: Sweating FTTH assets – Turning homes passed into ROI [Metro Connect Fall] – Bob Thompson, Jack Waters, Butch Brock, Sanyogita Shamsunder
• Keynote address – Strategies for AI infrastructure investment [Investment and Finance Forum] – Josh Pang
• Panel: Off-the-shelf to on-site – Modular innovations in hyperscale deployment – Jenifer Muir, Doug Recker, Thiago Fogaca Bianco (Moderator: Valerie Crafton)
• Panel: Engineering natural gas for AI‑scale data centers – From fast ramping to futureproofing [Datacloud Energy] – John Bates, Michael McKissack
• Panel discussion: AI infrastructure investment – unprecedented opportunity or overheating? [Investment and Finance Forum] – Ankur Saxena, Josh Pang (Moderator: Miles Loo)
• Panel: How are we overcoming the challenges of mass fiber deployment? [Metro Connect Fall] – Bo Gresham, Eric Rajchel, Gareth Jones, Trey Hayes, Rob Lammens
• Presentation
• Panel: Before the Build – Designing Data Centres for AI Scale, Density and Change – Phillip Marangella, Venkatesh Janakiraman, Jason Black, Dana Pack, Bryant Farland
• Panel: Supply chain reaction – Navigating supply chain challenges in energizing data centers [Datacloud Energy] – Shawn Smith, Jason Altobelli, JaeKyun Kim
• Panel: How are financing structures evolving in a complex market? [Investment and Finance Forum] – Wesley Altman, Syed Ahmed
• Panel: Building an ecosystem – The critical role of network interconnection in digital infrastructure [Metro Connect Fall] – Ben Edmond, Brent Legg, James Jun, Mike Maniscalco, Bryan Lubin (Moderator: Hunter Newby)
• PwC Workshop & Happy Hour (invitation only) [Meetups & Workshops]
• Fireside Chat: Operating and Scaling Inference-First AI Factories – Raj Jegannathan
• Panel: How to approach the convergence of data centers, power and fiber? [Investment and Finance Forum] – William Smales, David Crane (Moderator: David Strauss)
• Fireside Chat: Data centers in space – The next frontier? – Rob DeMillo
• Panel: Show me your workforce plan – How access to talent is becoming a differentiator for digital infrastructure operators [Metro Connect Fall] – Austin Bonner, Mike Day, Kate DeLoach, Jeff Cordle
• Panel: Operating in the Age of AI – Can Data Center Operations Keep Up? – Alessandro Lombardi, John Shultz
• Panel: Alternative energy pathways – Powering the next generation of data centers [Datacloud Energy] – Eduardo Sodero, Phil Jones, Prabhav Shah, Trinity Lloyd
• Drinks Reception

Thursday, September 3, 2026

• Data center fiber keynote panel – Are we returning to the connectivity-first model of DC site selection? [Metro Connect Fall] – Tricia Harvester, Tom Spackman, Emilio Baez, John White (Moderator: Andrej Danis)
• Opening Remarks
• Datacloud USA Stage Live Stream [Datacloud Energy]
• Keynote Address – Nancy Novak
• Neocloud Leaders Forum & Breakfast (by invitation only) [Summits & Forums] – Zev Rekhter, Andi Huels, Nilesh Shah, Jeffery Potvin
• BEAD community meetup [Meetups & Workshops] – Veneeth Lyengar, Brian Allenby (Moderator: Thomas Tyler)
• The M&A panel – Is the consolidation wave accelerating? [Metro Connect Fall] – Paul Traut, Alejandro Batista, Jeffrey Ferry
• Keynote panel: Texas at the helm of America’s AI dominance – Venkat Tirupati, Alex Hernandez (Moderator: Meghan Griffiths)
• Bespoke session [Metro Connect Fall]
• Panel: Reframing the Data Center Conversation – Building Trust, Transparency and Community Support for Digital Infrastructure – Denitza Arguirova, Jenifer Muir, Swati Mehra, Erin Bibeau, Amber Caramella (Moderator: Susanna Kass)
• Keynote panel: From hype to hook‑up – Making nuclear real for AI‑scale data centers [Datacloud Energy] – Arquelle Shaw, Bob Kinscherf, Brian Gitt, John Bates (Moderator: Mark Gusakov)
• Panel: Fiber investment – What does it take to win in the fiber market? [Metro Connect Fall] – Ariana Batori, Chad Crank, James Henry (Moderator: Kemal Hawa)
• Panel: Data Center Investment – Who Gets Funded When Power, Debt and AI Demand Collide? – Adam Kahn, Lawrence Vo (Moderator: Avelina Burbridge)
• Panel: The Live Stack – Running “Bring-your-own-power” and “Behind-the-Meter” at scale [Datacloud Energy] – Jeff Bladen, Sam Wolanske
• Panel: How is digital infrastructure ABS evolving and what can we learn from recent deals? [Metro Connect Fall] – Aman Mittal, John Glotzbecker, Brad Moline (Moderator: Kelly Mellecker)
• Networking lunch available [Metro Connect Fall]
• Panel: De-Risking the Power Bottleneck – Insurance Innovation for AI Infrastructure Scale – Preet Gill
• Panel: Time-to-Power – Meeting the new standard for digital infrastructure projects [Datacloud Energy]
• Lunch
• Neocloud Summit (open to all) [Summits & Forums] – Craig Tavares, Zev Rekhter, Jeffery Potvin, Vince Fong, Greg Osuri, Dave Senior Jr., Joshua Forman
• Town Hall: Overcoming NIMBYism and expediting permitting – Shawn Cutter, Navdeep Martin (Moderator: Ilissa Miller)
• Talent in Digital Infrastructure Workshop [Meetups & Workshops] – Swati Mehra (Moderator: Susanna Kass)
• Meeting & Exhibition Networking
• Meeting and exhibition time [Metro Connect Fall]
• Close of Datacloud USA
• Close of Metro Connect Fall [Metro Connect Fall]

Speakers

The current speaker roster features 138 confirmed names (see the full speaker list for the latest additions):

• Nancy Novak – Chief Innovation Officer, Compass Datacenters
• Ellen Yang – Director, Data Centers, AMD
• Jeffery Potvin – CEO, Arc Compute
• Vibhu Kaushik – Managing Director, Global Infrastructure Partners a part of Blackrock
• Andi Huels – Chief AI Officer, BluSky AI
• Craig Tavares – President & COO, Buzz HPC
• Jeff Ivey – Vice President, Data Center Construction, Crusoe
• Denitza Arguirova – Director, Development and Strategy , Crusoe
• Lawrence Vo – M&A Vice President, csquare
• Colin McLean – Chief Revenue Officer, DIGITAL REALTY
• Doug Recker – CEO, Duos Edge AI & Duos Technologies Group
• Phillip Marangella – Chief Marketing & Product Officer, EdgeConneX
• Alessandro Lombardi – Chairman and Founder , Elea Data Centers
• Zev Rekhter – Founder, Evergrid AI, Inc.
• Nilesh Shah – Partnerships, FarmGPU
• Justin Jordan – Head of Data Center Growth & Development , Galaxy
• Jenifer Muir – Founder & CEO, GEOT.Ai
• Sid Dhodi – Director, Datacenter Acquisitions and Energy Finance, Google
• Jason Altobelli – Director Energy Partnerships , Google
• Brian Smith – CTO, Nuclear Science & Technology, Idaho National Laboratory
• Jon Malpass – Vice President, Americas, KENT DATA CENTRES
• Buddy Rizer – Executive Director , Loudoun County, Virginia
• Valerie Crafton – SVP Strategy & Operations, MOD42 LLC
• Sean James – Distinguished Engineer – Energy Systems, NVIDIA
• Jason Black – Sr. Director of Global Network Infrastructure , NVIDIA
• Jack Minor – COO, Ornn
• Greg Osuri – Founder, Akash Network
• Roxanne Copass – Vice President, MEP Program , STACK Infrastructure, Inc
• Eduardo Sodero – CEO, TAKODA DATA CENTERS
• Adam Kahn – Director of Strategic Finance & FP&A , TensorWave
• Ilya Tabakh – VP of Innovation , TensorWave
• Jeff Bladen – Head of Energy, Verrus
• Brad Richter – SVP of Energy Origination , Hut 8 Corp.
• Raj Jegannathan – Chief Technology Officer, ChronoScale
• Bryant Farland – CEO, Edged Data Centers
• Amber Caramella – Chief Revenue Officer, NETRALITY DATA CENTERS
• Alex Yeh – Founder & CEO, GMI Cloud
• Ganesh Aiyer – President, Keel Infrastructure
• Arquelle Shaw – AMER President, Equinix
• Marc Ganzi – Chief Executive Officer, DigitalBridge
• Lindsey Bruner – Chief Operating Officer, CLEANARC DATA CENTERS
• Sachin Jain – Chief Operating Officer, Coreweave, Inc.
• Venkat Tirupati – Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, ERCOT
• Shawn Smith – VP Energy Infrastructure & Grid Development, Lambda, Inc
• Swati Mehra – Director Datacentre Operations, Global – CO+I, Microsoft Corp
• Todd Hillman – SVP and Chief Customer Officer, MISO
• John Bates – EVP Development and Power, PRIME DATA CENTERS
• Piotr Tomasik – Co-Founder & President, TensorWave
• Vince Fong – CEO, Highrise.ai
• Mike Maniscalco – Chief Executive Officer, QumulusAI
• Veneeth Lyengar – Executive Director for Broadband and Connectivity, State of Louisiana
• Meghan Griffiths – Co Chair Data Center Group (Partner), JACKSON WALKER
• Thiago Fogaca Bianco – Sales Director Data Centers – Colocations, Hitachi Energy
• Brian Gitt – SVP, Head of Business Development, OKLO INC.
• Jeffrey Moerdler – Chair, Data Center and Digital Infrastructure Practice , Haynes Boone
• John Chesser – CEO , QUANTICA INFRASTRUCTURE, LLC
• Bryan Lubin – Chief Data Center Officer, Moonshot Energy
• Josh Claman – Chief Executive Officer, ACCELSIUS
• Bob Kinscherf – VP, National Accounts, Constellation
• Colby Cox – Managing Director , DC BYTE
• Susanna Kass – Board & Senior Advisor, United Nations SDG-EP & Stanford University
• Mark Gusakov – CEO, Digital Infrastrucutre Group Inc.
• Phil Jones – Director of AI Data Centers and Micro Grids , EMERSON
• Shawn Cutter – CEO, EnergiAcres
• Sam Wolanske – Senior Director of Sales, Data Centers, EPC POWER CORP.
• Navdeep Martin – CEO, Flypower
• Craig Noxon – Vice President, North American Sales & Datacenter Lead , FuelCell Energy
• Joshua Forman – Corporate Lawyer, GREENBERG TRAURIG LLP
• Ilissa Miller – CEO, iMiller Public Relations
• Venkatesh Janakiraman – Associate Principal – Compute Electrical , LJC + CRG
• Preet Gill – Executive Vice President, Global Technology Risk Practice Leader, Lockton Companies
• JaeKyun Kim – Power Systems Division Lead , LS ELECTRIC America, Inc.
• Mike Parks – Chief Executive Officer, MCIM
• Matt Coffel – Chief Commercial and Innovation Officer, Mission Critical Group
• Sanjay Basu – Senior Director – GPU & Gen AI Solutions & Services – Cloud Engineering, Oracle
• Alex Hernandez – Founder & CEO, PowerBridge LLC
• John Shultz – Chief Product Officer AI , SALUTE
• Rob DeMillo – Co-Founder & CEO, Sophia Space
• David Bell – VP of Data Center & MicroGrid Development, VOLTAGRID LLC
• Risto Paldanius – Vice President, Energy Americas , Wärtsilä Energy, NA
• Michael McKissack – EVP Strategy, WTG Energy
• Dana Pack – President, Americas, SMART COOLING
• Dave Senior Jr. – CEO & Project Director, Neural Edge Solutions
• Erin Bibeau – Senior Manager, Permitting, Hanwha Data Centers
• John Eland – Chief Executive Officer, Rubix
• Prabhav Shah – Director of Engineering, Hanwha Data Centers
• Trinity Lloyd – Sustainability & Energy Transition Technology Leader, Microsoft Corp
• Avelina Burbridge – Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP
• David Strauss – Principal & Co-Founder , BSP
• Kelly Mellecker – Partner, KIRKLAND & ELLIS
• Tom Spackman – CEO, Gigabit Fiber LLC
• Andrew Lipman – Partner, Morgan Lewis
• Kemal Hawa – Partner, Kirkland Ellis
• Bo Gresham – CRO, DYCOM
• Ben Edmond – CEO, CONNECTBASE
• Brent Legg – EVP, Government Affairs, Connected Nation
• Bob Thompson – Founder & CEO, Underline
• Dan Davis – CEO, ARCADIAN INFRACOM
• Jack Waters – CEO, Intrepid Fiber
• Butch Brock – CSO, Dragonfly Internet
• John White – COO, US SIGNAL
• Ariana Batori – Principal, Credit, Stonepeak
• Brian Allenby – Director of State Solutions, CostQuest Associates
• Alejandro Batista – MD, Searchlight Capital
• Austin Bonner – Global Director, Talent Acquisition, EdgeConneX
• Dave Schaeffer – Founder & CEO, Cogent Communications
• Kevin Coyne – President & COO, HyperLink Infrastructure, LLC
• James Jun – Chief Executive Officer, TOWARDEX
• Joel Ogren – Chief Executive Officer, Assured Communications
• Hunter Newby – CEO, Newby Ventures
• Eric Rajchel – VP of Engineering, Vantage Point Solutions
• Carrie Charles – CEO, BROADSTAFF TALENT SOLUTIONS
• Tricia Harvester – Director of Network Planning, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
• Emilio Baez – Sr. Director, Verizon
• Thomas Tyler – Founder, C207 PARTNERS LLC
• Jeffrey Ferry – partner-head of digital infra investing, Safanad capital
• Paul Traut – VP, Novacap
• Chad Crank – Managing Director, Grain Management, LLC
• Justin Melnikoff – Strategic Advisor & Member, Board of Directors, MOX Networks, LLC
• Bora Goekbora – Managing Director & Partner, Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
• William Smales – Partner and Chief Investment Officer, Morrison
• Navid Ariaban – Managing Director, FTI CONSULTING, INC.
• Maneesh Gauba – Industry Executive Director , Oracle
• Trey Hayes – Grid Investment & Connectivity Director , Alabama Power
• Mike Day – COO, BROADSTAFF, LLC
• Kate DeLoach – AVP- Sales Wholesale , AT&T
• Andrej Danis – Partner and Managing Director , AlixPartners
• James Henry – Senior Managing Director , BANK STREET GROUP
• John Glotzbecker – VP, Capital Markets , DATABANK
• Clark O’Neil – Managing Director and Partner , Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
• Josh Pang – Head of Digital Infrastructure AIF , Apollo Global Management
• Ankur Saxena – Investment Director , TDK Ventures Inc.
• David Crane – CEO, Generate Capital
• Joe Baeumel – VP Partner Strategy, KGPCO
• Miles Loo, jr – Executive Vice President, Newmark
• Brad Moline – Founder & President, Allo Communications
• Rob Lammens – Head of North American Fiber, Amdocs
• Syed Ahmed – Managing Director – Head of Digital Infrastructure, Apterra Infrastructure Capital

Datacloud USA 2026 takes place September 1-3, 2026, at the Austin Marriott Downtown in Austin, Texas. Register at datacloud-usa.com and use code HEDGEFUNDALPHA10 for 10% off your pass.