This extended keynote explores where the industry stands today, the challenges ahead, and the shifts required to unlock the next wave of growth in New Zealand and worldwide. Bring your questions.

• Making technology accessible and clarifying the role of AI
• The current state of the data centre industry
• What is not working and what must improve
• Where we are heading and what the future could look like
• Disruption across emerging frontiers including nuclear energy, immersion cooling, sustainable power, space exploration, fusion vs fission, and quantum computing
• How these global drivers will shape the future of New Zealand’s data centre industry

Nabeel Mahmood, Managing Director, Nomad Futurist (USA)

New Zealand’s accelerating data centre build-out is putting major pressure on teams delivering large-scale facilities, where speed, resilience, and certainty are critical. Construction partners must navigate land constraints, seismic requirements, labour shortages, and supply chain complexity while meeting the rising expectations of hyperscalers and major enterprise clients. This session brings together leading contractors to discuss how they are scaling delivery, managing risk across complex builds, and adapting procurement, cooling strategies, and compliance to support the next wave of large-scale development.

• New Zealand’s competitive position within Asia Pacific
• Balancing expansion with sustainability, energy, and security
• Delivering reliable, scalable, and efficient power and cooling
• Meeting demand driven by AI and digital transformation

Dean Addie, Chief Executive Officer, T4 NZ Data Centres

Ross Delaney, Chief Executive Officer, Datacentre220

Matt Neil, Director Data Centres, Datacom

Sam Excell, Head of Infrastructure Partners, Chorus

Moderated by:

Nabeel Mahmood, Managing Director, Nomad Futurist (USA)

Power dominates most data centre planning conversations, but the right fibre connectivity is just as critical in determining which sites are truly scalable. As AI, sovereign cloud and distributed architectures accelerate, resilient and diverse fibre is increasingly shaping the map of viable locations – and unlocking regional opportunities that weren’t previously possible. In this session, Martin Sharrock (Chief Technology Officer at Chorus) will show:

• How New Zealand’s largest open‑access fibre network is becoming a national strategic advantage, preventing connectivity bottlenecks and enabling expansion beyond metro hubs
• How fibre geography is shaping viable sites, the role of fibre in enabling AI and sovereign cloud
• How edge centres built on high‑resilience routes will underpin the next era of digital infrastructure

Martin Sharrock, Chief Technology Officer, Chorus

New Zealand is rapidly emerging as a key data centre and AI hub, driven by abundant renewable energy, political stability and a growing digital economy. With major cloud providers launching local cloud regions and Auckland’s capacity set to triple by 2025, the country is attracting increasing global attention. New submarine cable connections and regional expansion will further accelerate New Zealand’s position as an international digital infrastructure destination.

Simon Ansley, Investment Director, Invest New Zealand

As New Zealand’s data centre sector expands, how are investors evaluating PPAs, staged load and sovereign-cloud drivers. Investors are watching market dynamics, regulatory settings, and long-term opportunities, this panel brings together leaders from major funds to discuss where capital is moving, the hurdles they face, and what they see ahead for the sector.

• Current allocation trends across hyperscale, edge, and colocation
• Investor appetite for New Zealand vs APAC vs global markets
• Regulatory and tax considerations shaping inbound investment in New Zealand data centres
• Co-investment models and strategic partnerships
• How AI demand is reshaping valuation models and underwriting assumptions
• Financing capacity in a tight grid: funding growth amid connection constraints

Simon Ansley, Investment Director, Invest New Zealand

Kate Mitchell, Fund Manager – Data Centres, Centuria Capital Group

Matt Neil, Director Data Centres, Datacom

Sean Robertson, Managing Director - Debt Investments, Brookfield Asset Management

Moderated by:

Hishaam Mirza, Former Head of Direct Investments, NZ Super Fund

Explore how a true lifecycle approach, linking design, construction, commissioning, and operations through a unified digital twin, can unlock efficiency, resilience, and sustainability in data centres. This session goes beyond the typical focus on digital twins in either construction or operations, showing how Octave’s solutions bridge the gap and enable continuous data flow and value creation from initial design through to decommissioning.

• How to ensure data integrity and continuity from BIM to operations
• Real-world examples: Reducing rework, accelerating commissioning, and improving uptime
• Overcoming silos between project teams and facility operators

Nicholas Chote, Senior Solution Consultant, Octave

New Zealand’s data centre surge is putting exceptional pressure on construction teams to deliver larger, faster, and more resilient facilities while navigating land constraints, labour shortages, and supply chain volatility. In this opening discussion, leading contractors and delivery partners will share how they are scaling to meet demand, managing risk across complex builds, and adapting to the evolving needs of hyperscalers and enterprise clients. From procurement models to cooling innovation, seismic requirements, and compliance, this session sets the tone for a day focused on construction excellence.

• What’s changed for major DC projects: faster consents, environmental reviews, iwi engagement, and seismic design requirements
• Best-practice design and modular delivery for high-density computing, including advanced cooling approaches
• Managing proprietary systems and specialist installations when testing entities and technicians must be flown in from overseas
• Accelerating project delivery while managing risk, land constraints, labour shortages, and evolving hyperscaler requirements

Peter Skipper, Director, Data Centre Operations, New Zealand, DCI Data Centres

Tony Gaunt, Vice President Product Management, Vertiv

Charlene Furter, Datacenter Integration Sourcing Manager CO+I Datacentre Construction & Procurement, Microsoft

Anthony Whipps, Data Centre Lead, APAC, GHD

Moderated by:

Raji Rai, Director, Vastra Consulting Limited

In this session, you’ll hear rapid-fire 5-minute presentations from companies at the forefront of data centre innovation followed by a 20-minute panel discussion exploring how their services and solutions are transforming development – boosting delivery speed, improving cost certainty, and supporting sustainability and resilience goals.

Talk 1: Facilitated by: Jeff Sharp, Principal Industry Consultant, Octave
Talk 2: Modular by design: Accelerating scalable and flexible data centre delivery
Talk 3: Advanced tools for cooling and power efficiency
Talk 4: Achieving real time operational visibility

Moderated by:

Craig Young, Chief Executive Officer, TUANZ

As AI drives unprecedented demand, power and cooling become defining design requirements. This session explores global and local views on grid capacity, heat management, and practical strategies to support high-density AI workloads.

• Planning for grid capacity: global and local outlook
• Managing high-density cooling demands and thermal stress
• Mitigating the operational challenges of AI-driven loads
• Building resilience for the next generation of data centres

Ross Delaney, Chief Executive Officer, Datacentre220

This session will explore how investment goals influence design choices, risk management, and timelines, and how aligning capital strategy with on-the-ground realities can drive scalable, efficient, and future-ready data centres.

• Translating capital strategy into practical design, delivery, and operational decisions
• Balancing investor priorities with construction realities, risks, and timelines
• Driving scalability and efficiency through closer alignment between finance and project teams

As compute demand accelerates, data centres face growing pressure to secure reliable, scalable, low-carbon power. This panel brings together leaders from energy, infrastructure, and data centre sectors to examine the evolving energy mix, from grid constraints and renewable integration. We will explore how operators plan for long-term resilience and what policy shifts and investments are needed to scale clean energy and its supply chain.

• Diversifying power sources: solar, wind, battery storage, and nuclear
• Grid constraints, connection delays, demand flexibility and resilience
• The economics and viability of SMRs in the data centre landscape
• Building partnerships with utilities, governments, and investors
• Ensuring sustainability while meeting scale and uptime requirements
• Where will the next 300 MW come from?

John Clarke, Executive General Manager Future Grid, Transpower

Simon Currie, Co-Founder and Chief Projects Officer, Energy Estate

Sam Kivi, Chief Technology Officer, Grid Share

Phil Gibson, Former EGM Portfolio, Mercury NZ

Moderated by:

Mike Hopkins, Chief Executive Officer, Carbon and Energy Professionals New Zealand