Explore the Agenda
7:00 am Registration, Morning Refreshments & Networking
7:50 am Chair’s Opening Remarks
Unlocking Smarter, Faster Data Center Growth
8:00 am Pinpointing Texas’ Next Growth Markets to Stay Ahead of Demand
- Identifying where hyperscalers and colocators are actively deploying new capacity across Texas today and which markets are absorbing demand fastest
- Forecasting how power availability, grid investment and policy dynamics are shifting future growth
- Understanding why Texas continues to capture outsized data center investment compared to other regions and how this shapes long-term market strategy
8:30 am Session Reserved for Amrize
9:00 am Hyperscaler & Colocator Panel: Defining What to Expect from Your Project Partners & How They Can Deliver
- Defining what owners look for in Texas project partners beyond technical capability
- Explaining project partner expectations throughout planning and delivery: how can teams better align with decision-making criteria, contracting approach, and communication practices?
- Clarifying what it takes for project partners to support speed without increasing risk: the importance of early commitments, realistic scheduling and accountability
9:30 am Speed Networking
Kickstart your conference experience with a burst of energy and connection! In this fast-paced session, you’ll connect with peers from your region through quick-fire introductions that spark meaningful conversations that last throughout the conference and beyond.
10:00 am Morning Refreshments
Track 1: Planning & Project Set Up
Optimizing Project Set-up to Accelerate Site Selection, Permitting & Approvals
10:30 am Case Study: Managing Permitting to Improve Approval Predictability & Schedule Certainty
Design Manager, Rowan Digital
- Engaging Texas jurisdictions early to clarify permitting requirements, infrastructure capacity, utility constraints and political considerations that affect approval timing
- Coordinating multi-discipline reviews through an integrated permitting strategy, leveraging local GC insight to align design, utilities and reviewers
- Treating permitting as a strategic project risk by using phased approvals, parallel reviews and early design alignment to protect schedule certainty
11:00 am Track Closed
11:30 am Interactive Discussion: Optimizing Site Selection to Reduce Risk, Improve Connectivity & Secure Power
- Balancing proximity to major metro areas with the advantages of rural and West Texas sites to unlock larger land access, simplified logistics and greater flexibility for scalable data center construction
- Integrating energy strategy into site selection by taking advantage of Texas’s deregulated ERCOT grid to reduce interconnection delays and long-term risk
- Integrating climate, zoning, and permitting risks into site selection decision-making to ensure long-term project viability and regulatory compliance permitting risks into site selection decision-making to
12:00 pm Case Study: Building Engagement Strategies that Address Local Concerns Expectations to Manage Community Pushback
Regional Manager, Community Impact & Investment, Turner Construction Company
- Engaging local officials, residents and community influencers early to align expectations around infrastructure impacts, construction timelines, and local benefits
- Addressing common ‘Not-in-my-Backyard’ and ‘Not Over There Either’ concerns around power use, water demand, noise and land use through clear, fact-based communication
- Sharing how we adapted engagement strategies to local context across Texas communities, reflecting differences between rural counties, fast-growth suburbs and urban-edge municipalities
12:30 pm Session Reserved for Forge25
Track 2: Preconstruction & Operations
12:40 pm Networking Lunch Break
Track 1: Planning & Project Set Up
Securing Reliable Power Across Texas’ Complex Grid
1:40 pm Panel: Working with Texas Utilities to Manage Capacity Constraints & Protect Power Delivery Timelines
Mission Critical Executive, Balfour Beatty
Senior Manager - Program & Project Delivery, Microsoft
- Examining the Execution constraints Texas utilities are managing today, including overlapping large-load demand, capital prioritization, transformer availability workforce limits and constrained construction and outage windows
- Aligning your project planning as sumptions with how Texas utilities sequence and execute work, addressing engineering timelines, construction windows and outage coordination before designs and schedules are locked
- Coordinating ERCOT interconnection milestones with utility delivery activities, including inspections, outage planning and energization, to avoid timing gaps that delay power delivery
2:10 pm Roundtable Networking: Understanding ERCOT: Navigating Texas’ Unique Power Grid for Data Center Projects
- Operating within ERCOT’s independant, deregulated grid: how can we enable faster market decisions, flexible power procurement and accelerated data center development
- Navigating ERCOT interconnection processes, approval timelines and outage coordination to reduce energization risk and protect your time to operations
- Forecasting load growth, substation capacity and upgrade requirements to avoid late-stage power constraints
2:40 pm Session Reserved for Stratus
Track 2: Preconstruction & Operations
3:10 pm Afternoon Refreshment & Networking
Maximizing Expertise in a Complex Market
3:40 pm Strengthening Your Workforce to Build Highly Skilled Teams & Sustain Productivity
- Developing regionalized workforce strategies to keep skilled teams within commuting distance of your project
- Optimizing labor scheduling and resource allocation to balance workload and prevent burnout: how can we maintain aggressive timelines without compromising efficiency or employee well-being?
- Aligning project specific hiring and team deployment strategies to ensure the right mix of craft labor and technical staff are available for each site without overreliance on temporary labor pools
4:10 pm Interactive Discussion: Driving Productivity Across Every Project Phase & Building System
Break into focused groups to examine how stronger alignment between design and field teams can drive efficiency across every phase and building system, exploring how collaboration across trades reshapes delivery strategies, staffing models, utility coordination, and prefabrication opportunities. Share tested wins, tackle the unique challenges of delivering Texas-scale data center projects, and connect with partners who can help improve sequencing, reduce delivery risk, and strengthen execution on upcoming builds.
4:40 pm Chair’s Closing Remarks
4:50 pm End of Conference Day One
5:00 pm Advancing Data Center Construction Texas Happy Hour
Unwind and connect with peers at our drinks reception, an opportunity to continue the day’s conversations in a relaxed setting. Whether you’re building new partnerships or catching up with familiar faces, this is the perfect place to expand your network over drink!