The Next Generation by Salute

Data centers have gone from a niche real estate play to the most contested asset class in the market, and this episode brings together the people designing, financing, and legally structuring them to explain why.

Recorded live at Data Cloud Congress 2026, this episode brings design, investment, and law into the same conversation:

James Feeney - VP, AI & HP Strategy and Business Development (EMEA), Salute

Madeleine Hilton - Principal & Birmingham Managing Director, Gensler

Nick - Data Centre Leader for Europe & Project Director, Gensler

Al Watson - U.K. Head of Planning& Environment, Winston Taylor

Lacy Gratton - Partner, Winston Taylor

In this episode: why sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, and institutional capital are all converging on the same data centre pipeline, why joint ventures have become the default way to get deals delivered, and what it will take for the industry to move from crawling to actually running together.

In this episode of The Next Generation, Erin Rowe, Director of Sustainability at Salute, and Marten Bunnemann, CEO of E.ON Energy Infrastructure Solutions, explore one of the biggest challenges facing the data center industry: energy.

From grid constraints and time-to-power to waste heat, energy efficiency and grid flexibility, they discuss how data centers can evolve from passive consumers of power into active participants in the energy system and why greater collaboration between operators, utilities, policymakers and communities will be critical to powering the industry’s next phase of growth.

Hosted by Mark Reynolds, Chief Growth Officer at Salute, the first episode of The Next Generation explores what resilience means in today's rapidly evolving data center industry. Joined by Mike Jones, President of Global Operations at Salute, and Andy Lawrence, Executive Director of Research at the Uptime Institute, the discussion covers AI, operational excellence, risk, and the strategies helping data center operators build resilient infrastructure for the future.