Europe is regulating data centers, starting with Germany, where an Energy Efficiency Act is making demands on PUE and heat reuse.

NTT's Neal Kalita thinks the German Act is a "pilot" that other countries will adopt and adapt. It's a test case, he says, on whether regulations will "drive away data center operators" in that country.

However that plays out, data centers will have to be more transparent about their operations, their demands, and how they plan to evolve. There are big hopes that heat sharing will encourage communities to warm to the data centers in their midst, but how quickly can they be built and connected?

And finally, with all this to contend with, there's a huge change coming, as the demand for AI data centers will push demand out from traditional hubs, so AI training sites can get the power they need, while AI inference operations can have low latency to end users.

Kalita says that as we digitize the energy grid, and shift towards AI, a lot of things will have to change. Listen in to find out more.