Investment Forum | London // Opening Keynote Panel: Navigating capital, partnerships, innovation and datacenter expansion
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- Investment Forum Main Stage - Gallery 1 | 2nd Level
- Investment & Markets
- Building Europe's AI Factories
- Energy & Sustainability
- Cloud & Hybrid
- Edge Infra & Inference
Speakers
Xenia Sarri
Managing Director, DigitalBridge
COO of Real Estate Asset Management & Head of Digital Infrastructure Investments, Blackstone Europe
Jeff Tapley
COO, Digital Realty
David Smith
Deputy CEO, Echelon Data Centres
Kemal Hawa
Partner, Kirkland & Ellis
Our opening keynote panel for DCD Investment Forum London 2026 sets the scene for what we have learnt from the last 12 months whilst looking forward to the next. In an industry that is constantly evolving, how are operators and investors navigating the bottlenecks whilst capitalising on the tailwinds? Leaders from across the colocation, neocloud and investment markets sit down to discuss the core paths to continued expansion.
- How are leading operators and investors thinking about growth and expansion?
Which markets are the future of Europe’s digital infrastructure journey, and how have dynamics changed in the last 12 months? - Examining how operators are financing early stages of datacenter development as capital constraints remain a core bottleneck to growth
- Is there a necessity for moving beyond the "build first, connect later" model to onsite generation - is it a stop gap solution or a new permanent model?
- Do players who are more risk averse to emerging neocloud customers as opposed to established cloud players risk falling behind?