Alex Bennett Global Strategy Realisation and Transformation Director NTT Global Data Centers
The data centre industry has long operated to a familiar playbook. Sites were selected for their proximity to network infrastructure, facilities were designed to last two decades and supply chains were optimised for cost and efficiency. The reality now is that artificial intelligence has torn that playbook to shreds.
At the recent instalment of Data Centre LIVE: The London Summit 2026, four senior industry figures came together for The AI Data Centre Debate to discuss the challenges and opportunities created by AI’ s voracious appetite for compute, power and space. Their verdict: almost every assumption underpinning data centre development is being challenged simultaneously.
Alex Bennett, Global Strategy Realisation and Transformation Director at NTT Global Data Centers, set the scene. Operators had previously managed regional facilities of 10 to 20 megawatts. Then cloud computing arrived and changed everything. Now, customers are asking for 500-megawatt campuses.
“ The rules have been rewritten,” Alex contends,“ and continue to be rewritten every three months.”
50 June 2026