Buses will depart from the front of the hotel lobby for attendees that signed up and confirmed for the tour. Security check-in will be conducted upon arrival at the site. Photo IDs are required for security check-in.

Attendees will participate in a guided tour of the Meta Fort Worth Data Center to explore its infrastructure, security protocols, and operational practices.

Tour attendees will meet for a working lunch to note best practices and opportunities for improvement observed during the data center tour.

The bus will transport attendees back to the hotel following the conclusion of the tour.

Moderators: Matt Stansberry, VP, Practitioner Insights & Experience, Uptime Institute John O’Brien, Senior Research Analyst, Uptime Institute

Data center teams are being pushed to modernize their operational tooling across sensors, CMMS, DCIM, BMS integrations, telemetry platforms, and emerging digital-twin capabilities. Yet the industry has a long history of failed or underused management software, leaving many organizations cautious about investing again. In this workshop, participants will compare where previous tool deployments went wrong, identify the operational problems worth solving first, and discuss how to sequence capabilities in a way that reduces risk while preserving flexibility. Some goals for this session include:

• Prioritized list of organizational pain points driving software purchases
• List of software deployment failure examples to
• A sequence of recommended next steps for operations teams to self-assess readiness.

 

Kiran Shah, COO, Uptime Institute
Scott Killian, VP, Uptime Network

Official welcome and introductory remarks to commence the conference.

Moderator: Andy Lawrence, Executive Director of Research, Uptime Institute
Chris Brown, Chief Technical Officer, Uptime Institute
Jay Dietrich, Research Director, Sustainability, Uptime Institute
Jacqueline Davis, Research Analyst, Uptime Institute

Uptime Institute presents the popular panorama session, where the panelists and delegates discuss trends, events, and outages affecting the digital infrastructure industry.

An opportunity for attendees to network over dinner and drinks.

Moderator: Jay Dietrich, Research Director, Sustainability, Uptime Intelligence
Jeremiah Beaver, Sr. Technical Consultant, Uptime Institute Professional Services
Scott Brady, Managing Director, Diamond Realty
Jack Gibfried, Engineer & Security Integration, NERC

This session examines how data center operators are adapting to a less stable utility grid. Topics include long wait times for new capacity, voltage disturbance and ride-through requirements, and the operational implications of Texas Senate Bill 6, including expectations around exporting onsite power back to the grid during emergency conditions. A core question is whether operators have current and accurate information on existing and pending requirements, and how they should manage a more interactive, less predictable relationship with utility partners.

Moderator: Matt Stansberry, VP, Practitioner Insights & Experience, Uptime Institute
Steve Lim, SVP Marketing & GTM Strategy, NTT Global Data Centers

Data centers have become a visible target in debates about energy, growth, and community impacts. When public sentiment turns hostile, facilities and staff can become more exposed, affecting site security posture, morale, and even how practitioners talk about their jobs in everyday life. Rather than debating these perceptions, the session explores how operators can understand and navigate an increasingly adversarial environment and what operators can do (individually and collectively) to protect reliability, resilience, and long-term optionality, while addressing ways we as an industry can do better to address legitimate community concerns.

Moderator: Jay Dietrich, Research Director, Sustainability, Uptime Intelligence
John Frey, Sr. Director & Chief Technologist, Sustainable Transformation, HPE
Andrew Durocher, Principal Technologist, Sustainable Transformation, HPE

AI inference system designs are rapidly evolving, with rack densities of 40–80 kW. To achieve efficient operations, configurations should be optimized for specific workload types. These systems should arrive as integrated, plug-and-play racks that include networking, storage, and cooling. Facility operators must be involved in procurement to ensure proper integration with site infrastructure. This panel will examine the current state of AI inference systems and the challenges of deploying them in data centers.

Time allocated for attendees to take a quick break.

Dr. Owen Rogers, Senior Research Director, Uptime Intelligence

Inference is now an infrastructure problem, not just an AI one. While cloud platforms often offer the lowest cost, application architecture, data locality, and control requirements ultimately determine where inference runs.

Moderator: Daniel Bizo, Senior Research Director, Uptime Intelligence
Julian Sabogal, Principal Consultant, Uptime Institute Professional Services

As data centers scale to support AI workloads and increasing uptime demands, power distribution has become more complex and mission-critical than ever. This session explores modern power architectures highlighting trends such as higher-density deployments, modular design, and advanced monitoring.

Moderator: Matt Stansberry, VP, Practitioner Insights & Experience, Uptime Institute
Cedric Vaudel, VP Business development, RobotLAB, Inc.

Robotics and autonomous systems are increasingly being introduced into industrial environments, but their role in mission-critical data center operations remains largely untested. In this session, we will host an executive from RobotLAB to explore where robotic systems may realistically assist operators, from inspection and monitoring to security, inventory management, and hazardous task support.

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Lunch break for all attendees.

Moderator: Daniel Bizo, Senior Research Director, Uptime Intelligence
Brandon Smith, VP Global Sales & Product, ZincFive

Join this interactive Q&A session with ZincFive to explore the latest advancements in nickel-zinc battery technology for mission-critical power applications. Discover how emerging battery innovations are enhancing safety, sustainability, and performance in data centers.

Moderator: Matt Stansberry, VP, Practitioner Insights & Experience, Uptime Institute
Rose Weinschenk, Research Analyst, Uptime Intelligence

Investing in human factors is not about making data centers “nicer.” It is about improving reliability and retaining skilled operators. Reducing cognitive load, improving workflow design, and addressing factors such as lighting, acoustics, and mobility can produce measurable performance gains while reducing churn at a fraction of the cost of recruiting and training replacements. This session builds on the success of earlier roundtables focused on operator experience and performance.

Dr. Rand Talib, Research Analyst, Uptime Intelligence

Data center cooling strategies influence both energy efficiency and water consumption. This session presents new analysis of PUE and WUE performance using operational data from multiple facilities. The findings highlight how different cooling architectures and operating environments shape the balance between energy efficiency and water use.

Short recess for attendees.

Moderator: Jacqueline Davis, Research Analyst, Uptime Intelligence
Julian Sabogal, Principal Consultant, Uptime Institute Professional Services

While liquid cooling dominates industry attention, most enterprise and colocation operators will continue to rely on air cooling for the foreseeable future, often at increasing densities. This session focuses on what is actually changing in air-cooled environments, including smarter controls, improved aisle containment, fan and filtration strategies, CRAC and CRAH tuning, economization approaches, and airflow optimization.

Moderator: Matt Stansberry, VP, Practitioner Insights & Experience, Uptime Institute
Jeremiah Beaver, Sr. Technical Consultant, Uptime Institute Professional Services

Data center operators are increasingly moving beyond time-based preventive maintenance toward condition-based and predictive models that leverage sensors, controls, and historical data. This member discussion explores real-world results and challenges for applying predictive maintenance to current data center operations.

Matt Hawkins, Uptime Educations
Mike Doolan, Global Technical & Reliability Director, CBRE

This session shares practical insights and real-world outcomes from implementing competency-based training through Competency & Confidence Assessment Modeling (CCAM). Learn how organizations have applied CCAM to measure both technical proficiency and workforce confidence, align development programs with operational goals, and close critical skill gaps.

Moderator: Scott Killian, VP, Uptime Network
Matt Stansberry, VP, Practitioner Insights & Experience, Uptime Institute

An open forum for attendees to engage with experts and peers on pressing issues in the data center industry. Participants are encouraged to share insights, pose questions, and discuss innovative solutions in a collaborative learning environment.