Investment Forum | New York // Opening keynote fireside: The impact of AI breakthroughs on the future of data center investment

Golding Chief Technology Officer and Partner Appleby Strategy Group Dan Golding is one of the world's leading experts at data center and network engineering, business development, and operations. He has a 25-year career focused on building Internet, Cloud, and AI/ML infrastructure for enterprises, colocation providers, hyperscale clouds, and the emerging AI ecosystem. Dan recently left a long career at Google where he was the only Google Engineering Director to be a part of both the Google Global Networking and Google Data Centers Advanced Technology Innovation teams. He's been a technical lead on the design, engineering and build teams responsible for over $25b of datacenters - thousands of megawatts. He's also a leader in data center leasing, having negotiated, sold, performed due diligence, or signed over $600m of wholesale data center lease deals.

Prior to joining Google, Dan was the Vice President of Operations and Engineering at Iron Mountain Data Centers, and before that, RagingWire Data Centers (now NTT Data Centers). Dan was the sector's leading industry analyst and investment banker at Gartner for Technical Professionals, Tier 1 Research (451 Group) and DH Capital. Dan was one of the earliest engineering leaders at groundbreaking Internet service providers like AOL, Mindspring, and Earthlink. Dan is the former Chairman of NANOG and former vice-Chairman and co-founder of Open-IX. He is frequently credited as the co-founder of Northern Virginia's Data Center Alley in Ashburn.

Dan's three most significant innovations have been the popularization of the now dominant Donut model of Internet interconnection which supplanted the former Tier-n model of interconnect; the most historically advantageous Ashburn, VA data center land deal - NTT's 100 acre campus in the middle of Ashburn for $20m in 2012 - land with an objective value of $500m; and the development of engineering continuous improvement techniques to vastly accelerate deployments in hyperscale data centers by factors of 5x or more.

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Ilissa Miller is Founder of iMiller Public Relations, President of NEDAS, co-founder of the Independent Data Center Alliance.

With over 25 years of experience in the digital infrastructure sector, Ilissa is a sought after advisor offering cutting-edge strategies to companies including data center operators, Internet exchanges, interconnection platform enablers, edge computing, global networking including metro, regional, national, and subsea networks and more. Through effective communication strategies including positioning statements and thought-leadership initiatives, Ilissa’s expertise helps companies communicate innovative solutions, develop and shape partnerships, and accelerate growth.

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Andrej leads the Americas Digital Infrastructure practice at AlixPartners. He specializes in driving value creation across the digital infrastructure landscape, with a focus on fiber, towers, and data centers. He helps clients optimize fiber deployment, maximize asset monetization, and enhance operational efficiency to unlock long-term growth. His expertise extends to M&A strategy, guiding companies through due diligence and post-transaction value realization. In data centers, he focuses on execution excellence for new DCs, ensuring projects are delivered on time through robust supply chain strategies and sourcing optimization, as well as margin improvement and value creation for traditional DCs.

A recognized thought leader, Andrej is a frequent speaker and panelist at premier industry conferences, where he shares insights on the evolving telecommunications landscape, the future of digital infrastructure, and the disruptive impact of emerging technologies. 

Before joining AlixPartners, Andrej held leadership roles at Deutsche Telekom and T-Systems. He holds a dual PhD in economics and law. 

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