Introducing Talent Talks, the podcast where we dive into all things talent in the real estate, construction, and infrastructure world. From the boardroom to the building site, we’ll uncover the stories, insights, and people shaping our industry today. We shine a spotlight on data centres, one of real estate's fastest-growing and most in-demand sectors.

In this episode of the Talent Talks podcast, Sarah Davenport and Oli Coote sit down with Luisa Cardani, who leads the data centres program at techUK. The conversation explores the critical intersection of data centres, public policy, and regulation, moving beyond the traditional focus on design and operations to examine how national infrastructure priorities and sustainability are shaping the sector.

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You can read the transcript of the discussion below:

Sarah Davenport

Today, we’re joined on the Capstone Talent Talks podcast by Luisa Cardani. Luisa’s work sits at the intersection on data centres, public policy and regulation, and whilst much of the focus within the sector is on design, delivery and operations, Luisa brings a crucial perspective on how government policy, planning framework, sustainability, regulation and national infrastructure priorities are shaping the future of digital infrastructure.

This conversation further underpins our love of the data centre sector, offering a hugely diverse range of careers, and we're looking forward to hearing more about Luisa’s career and expertise.

Luisa, welcome, and thanks so much for joining us.

Luisa Cardani

Hello Sarah, Oli. Lovely to see you both.

Sarah Davenport

Let's start off, Luisa, shall we? Talk to us about your journey into data centres.

Luisa Cardani

Yeah, of course. I think similarly to most people in the industry, I'm yet to hear someone say, "No, I absolutely wanted to work in data centres when I was a teenager." Most people, I think, sort of stumble upon the industry, partly because it's fairly new, and it has developed through the years. But also, it seems like once you're in, you're in, in the sense that it's an industry that tends to retain the people that it hires because it's so fascinating.

So, whilst I wasn't looking specifically for a career in data centres, I similarly stumbled upon it. I have a policy background. That's what I studied, and that's what I did my master's on. And then I ended up doing a bit of a career in PR and then government. I worked at the time in one of the many iterations of industrial strategy at BEIS, which no longer exists as a government department. It's been divided between Business and Investment and DESNZ, which is the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

And then I took a turn. I ended up working on data protection-related matters, GDPR. And as I was looking into data protection and data privacy, we were already starting to see questions around data sovereignty and data localisation. And so, I started scratching the surface, like, where is the data, where is it physically? Because, when you do policy, everything is very theoretical. When you look at regulation, it's all very much in theory. But sometimes you need to understand the practice.

So, I went looking around for where the data was being held. And of course, I spoke to telecoms companies, and they were all like, "No, we don't hold the data. The data is not with us; it's with data centres." And what are data centres? And so that's how I ended up doing what I do. I stumbled upon the sector and then, pretty soon, a role opened here at techUK, which used to be Emma Fryer. She's now at Cyrus One. She's very well known in the sector. And so, I stumbled upon the role and have been at techUK ever since, looking after our data centre members.

Oli Coote

Just thinking about some of the time frames, what led you to kind of where you are now at techUK? I guess a lot was changing in and around that kind of 2019/2020. We had COVID and all of those types of things.

Luisa Cardani

And we had Brexit!

Oli Coote

And we had Brexit, exactly. Did you find that because of some of those things that are just completely in many respects unrelated to anything to do with tech and data and all the rest of it, it meant that there were then suddenly all of these things that came to the fore and needed addressing with more government policy and so on. Was there a bit of a kind of coming together of lots of different elements there?

Luisa Cardani

I think the government had just started to understand a little bit. And when I say understand, I mean they were probing at the sector, and when I say government, I do mean civil servants, because it's only very recent that government officials, your MPs, your ministers, your Secretary of State and the Prime Minister talk about data centres. But from a civil service perspective, really, the sector was mostly known for environmental permitting because of backup generation, and perhaps some local authorities for planning, and definitely some work along the lines of digital infrastructure, but there wasn't the same focus as there is now.

And most definitely when I moved into the sector, it was on the back or at the very beginning of COVID and due to Brexit, questions around security and resilience more broadly, right? Because quite soon after that, we had the geopolitical crisis of Russia invading Ukraine, and the energy crisis. And so, the sector sort of like a perfect storm found itself in the eye of Sauron, so to speak, because then immediately after, you also had ChatGPT and the advent of large language models. So, I think, I joined just before all this started, so I got the very last moments of quiet for the sector before it got projected onto the international stage and the media as it is today.

Oli Coote

And from a sovereignty perspective as well, there's so much changing so quickly, and it feels like these are huge decisions and policies that need to be in place to protect those types of things and create a roadmap for how things are then going to work moving forward. All of that feels like it needs to happen and is happening very, very quickly. How’s that getting implemented, playing out and being organised?

Luisa Cardani

I think most people would argue that data globalisation is obviously something that is very beneficial for obvious reasons. Localising data is seen as something very protectionist. However, there will always be workloads that require data sovereignty from a security and resilience perspective, and sometimes due to data protection perspectives as well. So, you always had that; it's just now it's becoming a strategic question for the government, given the current geopolitical landscape.

But also, I guess it's a matter of do you want to have your own capabilities at home? So, I think there's a lot of thinking going into that right now. I think most companies would argue that the less international friction there is, the better for business. But from a government perspective, of course, especially now that we've left the EU, it's been a few years. There is a question about how you want things to work when it comes to not just your own national regulations, but also how you want to do business. And in all honesty, I think it's normal to ask yourself questions around data sovereignty, and a lot of our members at techUK are part of those conversations.

Sarah Davenport

So, talk to us a bit about the work that you're doing at techUK. Tell us a bit about techUK more broadly and then specifically your role within it, because I think that's really interesting from a career perspective.

Luisa Cardani

Yeah, of course. So techUK, it sort of does what it says on the tin. It's the trade association for tech in the UK. Our members go from chips to clicks. So, we'll have software developers, your large international companies like Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, you'll have chip manufacturers, all the way to digital infrastructure, whether it's telecoms, cyber, as well as different sectors within the subsection of tech, so satellites and health tech, financial services, fintech. techUK covers all of that.

And then we look at the applications that are the horizontals, right, the technologies across all of these subsectors in tech, so quantum, emerging tech, robotics, AI, the bigger data and digital economy questions, so data protection, AI, copyright, so on and so forth. But then I, as I said, look after our data centre members. So, under our digital infrastructure team, I'm in touch regularly with our member companies that join techUK, who are operators, and the wider ecosystem. So, you go from your medium to large colocation providers all the way to your consultancies, your real estate and law firms.

So, we do have quite a bit of the data centre ecosystem within our membership, and really what we do, what a trade association does is have a cohesive voice as a sector and engage with key stakeholders, whether that be your government officials, your regulators, your research institutes and academia, all the way to the media. I often get asked questions from media outlets, and it's my job, where there is an agreed position, to make sure that gets relayed to the media on behalf of the sector.

And we work on a number of things. Currently, some of the things we're working on are data centres being in scope of the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill. We go from that all the way to water use and demystifying the sector and trying to work with regulators and government on providing some initial data to try to prove that perhaps in the UK data centres are not a water intensive sector or at least not to the same extent that is often portrayed by the media or that other geographies give the sector a slightly less environmentally friendly reputation.

So, we do work on the whole policy spectrum. And lately, no surprise, a lot of work is going on energy and working with NESO, Ofgem and DESNZ, not just on grid access, so being able to go through the queue, but all the way to energy costs.

Sarah Davenport

Can I just ask a quick question about, obviously, the data centre sector is now critical infrastructure, and were you heavily involved in that work? I mean, what a thing to be involved with.

Luisa Cardani

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's a little bit of a double-edged sword at the moment. So, with that designation comes also more oversight from the government and a stronger partnership with the sector, which means that they might have asks of the sector that previously weren't there, from providing information all the way to making sure that the government is able to respond as appropriate to certain types of critical national infrastructure incidents.

So, it's a double-edged sword, but I think it was quite crucial for the sector. As I said, when I joined techUK, the government was really looking at this question around security and resilience. And as they consulted with the sector, we basically told them, please don't do anything too bespoke in the sense that a lot of our members are international businesses, and Europe is still a very large market.

So please try to harmonise as much as possible or align policy, where possible, with other markets. And so, some countries in the EU have already recognised the sector as critical national infrastructure. On top of that, the sector is in the scope of the NIS regulation there. So, when we consulted with the government, that was one of our suggestions, right? Could we have the sector recognised for how important it is and have a better relationship with the government, better engagement, more formalised engagement, right? All the way to if you're so concerned about a baseline when it comes to security and resilience, perhaps do what's already been done and do it, a little bit better, which TBC because it's currently going through parliament.

Oli Coote

Are you finding some of that friction that might have been there previously because of the work you're doing, others, and some of the members, and everyone coming together? Is that easing? Are you finding that because it is so critical now, that everyone's trying to find a way and trying to find a way a bit more quickly in order to kind of ensure that, whether it's power, whether it's sustainability, whether it's sovereignty, all those kinds of things, is that easing a little bit? Is it starting to speed up and become a bit easier?

Luisa Cardani

I mean, I deal with friction in every single sense because, as you can imagine, different companies will have different objectives. Already, building consensus within the sector, sometimes it's easy, sometimes not so easy. It's dealing with the friction within the sector of what is an agreeable position for everyone. And then it's dealing with the friction of the other side of the house, which is the government, in the sense that, as you can imagine, different government departments have different priorities. And sometimes, unfortunately, those are competing priorities.

I always give the example of how we engage with the two different parts of the department that really do lead on both energy security and net zero. And those two don't seem to be in contradiction with each other. But when it comes to the data centre sector, they are because, you know, you can ask the sector to be very energy secure, but that leads to, you know, backup generation, and the other side asks for energy efficiency, but also the circular economy. So yes, you could repurpose a building, utilise recycled tech, service them for a longer life cycle, right? Not always having the latest model, but that will impact your energy efficiency. So, you can't have your cake and eat it, right? It's all about balance, and sometimes it's really difficult to bring every single player together in a room and try to make them understand this, and this goes across government, right?

Some government departments are really interested in international competition, right? How does the sector fare here compared to in other geographies and other departments? Maybe for environmental concerns, they would rather have fewer data centres, which, of course, is not what we want at techUK. We really support what we call sustainable growth of the sector. We think you can grow the sector in a responsible, sustainable way that is not necessarily at odds with environmental concerns.

But it's really hard to land that message, and it's really hard to make people understand what is realistically a very, very technical and historically a bit secretive sector. So, just getting them to be out there and talking. I think a lot of them are doing it a lot more than they used to, but it's been slow in bringing people to the table. I think the sector used to say the government never listens to us. Now, they have perhaps a bit too much attention, especially with AI, right? People equate AI with data centres.

Yes, there's a lot of friction. And I think also there are a lot of different hopes, right? They seem to bring a lot of investment, but they're not cash cows, right? They are here; they have 10-year leases. When they come, they're here to build infrastructure and stay, and they need to be able to do so on their own terms in the sense that if they want a specific location, there's a reason. If certain customers want certain things, that's for the sector to decide and not necessarily for the government. And I think that's where we had the most friction, which is the government now thinking that they can distort the market by asking data centres to go to specific locations.

And the “build and they'll come” no longer really holds true these days. And more importantly, it's not the data centre's gift to give. It's really their customers.

Sarah Davenport

Yeah. And if you look at sustainable, sensible growth, which is obviously what you're advocating for, what does that look like in real terms?

Luisa Cardani

Realistically speaking, there are some systemic issues in the UK that need addressing. Energy costs, being some of them, are a bit of a pain for the sector. One would argue that if you want to have a thriving economy, you want cheap, reliable, renewable, clean power in abundance. And at the moment, we don't have that. It's expensive, and we don't have as much as we ought to have for the rapid electrification of everything. You know, we're going to have electric cars. It's not just data centres. This is the other thing.

The beauty of being part of techUK is that we're able to share these messages with the government in a way that really does say this is a really chunky part of your GDP. This is not just data centres, right? Energy costs are impacting everyone. And as we're all digitising, we're having this call right now. This is a podcast that’s going to be hosted at a data centre somewhere. And I think that rapid digitisation, which sort of started with COVID, is not going to stop. So, it's about recognising that. Where you can change some of these things that will ease some of the burden, because if you have a lot of renewable and clean power, then what is realistically the biggest environmental impact of data centres, which is that they are high energy users, would no longer be such a concern.

There's a reason why companies love to move to Scandinavia. Because they can say we compute, all of our workloads run on 100% certifiable renewable power, which we can't do in the UK because of how the grid is set up. You get a mix, and sometimes you don't really get a choice in that.

Those are some of the systemic issues that, if you were to ease, would allow for that sustainable growth of the sector. It's also true that data centres have always tried to be as environmentally conscious as possible, because they're always trying to make efficiencies. So, they try to be as energy efficient as possible for obvious reasons. Power is expensive. You want to use it as wisely as possible. Even in water use, fantastic innovations have developed in the sector, so you no longer need to cool with water; you can have direct-to-chip cooling or closed-loop cooling systems. So, the sector has always been moving slowly in that direction.

What we try to do is ensure that regulation is only there as a baseline, as guidance for the sector, and then each company should be able to do as much on top of that as they want. I'm sure you speak to some fantastically sustainable companies out there, from whether they provide their excess heat into district heat networks, all the way to whether they build their own reservoirs and improve on the biodiversity of an area, all the way to water reuse or using different sources of water.

I think the concerns the public often has about the environmental cost of data centres, especially in the UK, are not true; it's just about how much more sustainable you can become. And we are reaching the point where, really, it's for systemic change, not for individual companies to try to change the way the National Grid operates, although we do try. That's the whole point of why we're here as a trade association. We're here to try and change that for the sector and for the wider economy, of course.

Oli Coote

The trade association, I'm sure, has grown quite a lot just in terms of people that are working there because there are so many people that have that kind of vested interest in being able to work with the government and all the policies that are being put in place, whether it's sustainability initiatives or its sovereignty that we talked about before. So presumably, you've seen that yourself and coming through your pathway into the data centre world, I'm imagining that there's now probably a lot more people who are going into that sort of area as well. And it's another example of people working in DC who wouldn't necessarily, when they're at university, have been thinking well, I'm studying public policy and all the rest of it, and they're now moving into that sector.

Luisa Cardani

Yeah, absolutely. We're seeing massive interest in the sector from a lot of different areas that didn't necessarily think of data centres before. Whether we collaborate with other trade associations, especially on the energy side, they do so with us because they have an invested interest in data centres due to the fact that they use a lot of power. So, there is a lot of interest that is growing in those places. But also, we're seeing a change where, once upon a time, a data centre operator would have their operations engineers, maybe a couple of people in marketing and sales, a chief of staff, but they didn't necessarily have their own head of policy, or head of government affairs.

And I would argue that, if you're a large data centre operator and you don't have someone who does government affairs, you should definitely think of having one because they're saying you're not interested in the government. Well, guess what? The government is interested in you. And you need to have someone who can be that interface, who explains in non-technical terms, the sector, or at least your company, to your local authority, local government, more widely central government and stakeholders, right?

Because policy and marketing are becoming more and more tied together, right? I think gone are the days where you could just put out a press release saying “New 200MW data centre”. No, it needs to have more. What are you doing with the local community? What kind of ESG measures are you considering?

And so, I think there are really crucial positions. And then you have people like myself who are sort of the repository of everyone's views. I then convene everyone and make sure that there is one cohesive view, at least that I can bring to the government. So, it's definitely growing the same way that I think I keep seeing more and more public affairs consultancies, law firms. Everyone is sort of waking up to a sector they didn't know was always there.

Oli Coote

So gone are the days where it's a comms room in a bank, and now it's actually something that has to have these blended narratives that link in with kind of whether it's public policy, but then externally to kind of the narrative in the public domain and marketing and all the rest of it. It has changed so much.

Luisa Cardani

Absolutely. And it helps change the hearts and minds, right? So, if you have a PR issue, like the sector to some degree has a little bit because of its secrecy, historically, but also because attention and misinformation are just something that I think most sectors have to go through as they mature.

I try to always remind my members that it's not just you. The telecoms sector went through it. Aviation went through it. You need to just grit your teeth and put your best foot forward, right? When you're invited to speak with the government, when you're invited to speak with the media, don't say no. Agree internally on what you're going to say. Have some useful stats. Just invite attention rather than shy away from it. Because that's how you win the hearts and minds of people by showing that you have nothing to hide.

Oli Coote

There's much more diversity of thought and diverse backgrounds coming to the table, and having those discussions is also a really good thing as the industry evolves.

Luisa Cardani

Yeah, absolutely. There are brilliant people in the sector who, unfortunately, are slowly retiring, who started as electrical mechanical engineers and retired with the title of head of sustainability. So, they sort of took on a role that didn't necessarily exist back in the day, just because of the nature of data centres. But now you know you have sustainability graduates who would be thrilled to take a job in a data centre if they knew the sector existed. And that is the beauty of bringing diversity, because I would say the more any sector thrives, the more diverse talent you're able to bring to the table.

I appreciate that some things are just within the nature of certain roles, right? So, if you are someone who studied PR, you may not be able to get a job as a mechanical or electrical engineer, but there are apprenticeships. But the beauty of working in that environment is that you work with the engineers, you translate the really technical language that they use and what they do into your press releases, into your marketing.

If you are someone who does law and you want to try something different, policy is there for you. Why not? We're adjacent practices, right? Or compliance. There are a lot of fantastic roles in compliance because the more regulation, the more compliance a sector has to showcase and that attracts talent from lots of different walks of life, from, you know, social backgrounds, ethnic diversity and also gender diversity. I mean, this has historically been a very male-dominated sector. It still is, but it's changing, and it's changing very rapidly.

And we have some fantastic women in the sector who are very keen to get out there and shout that this is a great sector to work for, and to please don't be afraid, just because it's infrastructure.

Sarah Davenport

I think it was interesting. I was at an event yesterday, one of the women's speaker series with Catriona Shearer that JLL runs.

Luisa Cardani

She’s fantastic!

Sarah Davenport

She is, and she’s doing some incredible work. Dame Dawn Childs was the expert advising the panellists, as well as Joyce Wady, and we were discussing attracting more diverse talent in. One of the panellists just phrased it beautifully, around we need to educate the educators because this isn't a problem of working women moving in or whether it's adjacent industries moving in. This is an education piece that comes from that talent pipelining, and it needs to be commonplace that girls are equally represented within STEM subjects, which obviously leads to the kind of more technical routes.t

I suppose from a talent perspective, it'd be really interesting to hear your take on where the friction points are there in terms of the work and the members that you represent, what conversations are being had around talent, which is obviously what we're obsessed with, but also as a mission-critical environment. You're probably at the forefront of hearing where those risks are.

Luisa Cardani

I think it's more the fact that the sector is growing at such a speed that we just don't have the in-house talent, as in the UK, we don't have the talent pipeline to fill that gap. We don't have it now. We're not going to have it for the projected growth of the sector. That is definitely a challenge.

And the other challenge is that, unfortunately, a significant portion of the sector is now retiring. You have these veterans who have been there since day one, and they really need to pass down their knowledge. That is definitely a pinch that is massively felt, and I'm not best placed to say whether there are visa concerns and apprenticeship concerns there. But I definitely have heard that it's not just in the UK. This has been happening globally, but there are geographies where there is a lot more electrical and mechanical engineering talent than in the UK right now.

For example, our members who have operations in APAC find that they struggle less with finding that type of talent, but they'll struggle to find another type of talent. In the UK, you'll find a lot more managers and perhaps compliance-savvy people. But you just don't have the talent that is aware of the sector and ready to fill those roles. We may have the talent, but we just don't know if we do, because they may not have heard or considered the sector.

And so, what happens often is you have these great sector initiatives, like UTC Heathrow, trying to put data centres on the map for a lot of young kids. And where that's not possible, they'll have initiatives where they hire veterans, because they are mission critical, right? So, there are some skills that naturally fit within that.

I was on the Critical Careers Podcast, and it was really interesting because right there we had someone who used to be an athlete, and it's the same idea, right? People who are not afraid of constructive criticism of their performance in a certain respect. So, I hope that as the sector opens its doors more and more, the pinch will ease. It's hard for people to know that there's a sector they can go and work for if they don't know there's a sector they can go and work for. And more importantly, it's a sector that is everywhere.

And it's a stable employer, right? So, why move to London to become an engineer when you can stay elsewhere and keep that talent and growth local, fostering the local economy, rather than everyone just trying to move to the capital? And I am mindful that historically a lot of data centres have been within the M25, but that's no longer the case. There's massive growth in Manchester, Wales, and in other areas of the UK, and there's plenty of local talent. It's just a matter of whether that talent knows that the sector is there.

Sarah Davenport

Yeah. And if they're going to be prepared for it by the time it arrives.

Luisa Cardani

Absolutely. That is the other challenge, right? Because of poaching, many engineers end up in other sectors, such as computer science and banking. So, I think it's about improving the visibility and the reputation of the sector.

And you are right, there is a level of skills gap at the educational level that, unfortunately, is really hard to change because education moves really slowly. Changes to the curriculum take decades to see if there's been any significant change. I think a lot of our members look at things like apprenticeships to fill the gap as they can.

Oli Coote

Yeah. And there's been so much good work that's been done, I think particularly recently in terms of that marketing, and then the storytelling about the sector externally, and there are people going into schools to talk about data centres, and there are apprenticeships. There's so much good work happening, but it still feels, perhaps, in isolation to a degree, and it almost needs to be part of policy centrally, so that it comes through a little bit more into education, and people are more aware of it.

And I don't know if you can kind of see any kind of perceptions externally that could change that would actually then help that narrative and kind of help people better understand the sector and be more aware of it, not necessarily negative perceptions, but just perceptions that maybe could be changed to kind of help influence that.

Luisa Cardani

Well, I think it should start at computer science level in schools. So, when you teach kids how to open a Word doc and what computer science is, start from the basics. Where is the data? Where does the internet live? And therefore, the critical role that the data centre plays within the ecosystem.

I think it's also easy to get distracted by large household brands. If you talk about digital infrastructure, any kid would be able to recognise Vodafone or BT because they have a SIM card. They know what they are. But if you say Equinix, Digital Realty or any other colocation provider, they wouldn't know who they are. So, there isn't that association, right? If you tell them Google, they would, but they wouldn't necessarily associate it with digital infrastructure. They'd be like, Google, the search function.

That, I think, is what takes time, to explain what the sector is in really simple terms and teach kids that, this phone, how do you think that operates? And it's not just about explaining what 5G or 6G is, because we're moving in that direction, but about the fact that the cloud isn't in the sky; it's actual, real infrastructure, all the way to a server with chips, and that is where the internet lives.

Sarah Davenport

It's funny, I panicked about three minutes ago because I just felt somebody coming into the room. Thankfully you didn't see them, but this little hand came up and just stole the iPad from next to me to take it away. And I was just thinking, I've got to talk to you about data centres after this and exactly where they are.

Actually, I've got the data centre colouring book here, the books that Michael Gerardo does, they were stocking fillers this year. And they were just like, what is this data centre stuff that you keep talking about? And I just said, your future. That's what it is. But you know it has to be built in, doesn't it?

Luisa Cardani

I think it’s just because we’ve become more and more removed. So, it's now expected that you connect to the Internet in milliseconds. Actually, you’re never disconnected. I remember the time where you had to dialogue dial up, and that's when you tied that to the phone and to the cabling, and it makes sense. That's gone. So, no wonder kids don't know.

Although I have to say a lot of Gen Z’ers know because if they code, they know. And now, especially when they're environmentally conscious, because there are a lot of net-zero concerns. They'll be like, “If I code a certain way, it's going to use more energy, etc”. So actually, they are quite there. They're close to the understanding of the sector. They just sometimes lack the word data centre in their reasoning, but they know that AI uses a lot of energy. So, they might be closer, but they're still somewhat slightly removed.

Sarah Davenport

Yeah, maybe that linking is the educating the educators piece, isn't it? So, if we look at where you think the next 5 years or rather what the next 5 years look like for the sector, what are your predictions?

Luisa Cardani

Oh gosh, I don't have a crystal ball!

Sarah Davenport

Actually, I think five years is ridiculous in any sector, but especially the data centre one. But where do you think it's going in terms of the opportunities and the challenges, and obviously, your position is generally from a UK perspective, but I'd love to hear what your kind of road map is.

Luisa Cardani

The way I see it is, it's not my place to comment if there's going to be an AI bubble, but if there were one, at the end of the day, the infrastructure can be repurposed. So, I think that when it comes to infrastructure being built, where it has been built consciously in areas with high demand, it has been built in a sustainable manner. If there were an AI bubble, guess what? We are still going to stream our TV. We're still going to stream our music. We're still going to have our podcasts and whatnot. So, you can just put cloud in there.

Or who knows the next innovation? I have a colleague who looks after quantum, and they say every 10 years, quantum is here, so it could be the case. So, I think the sector will definitely be resilient to some of these potential future challenges, where it has been done in a conscientious way.

Where I think there's a lot of opportunity is in the way that the sector innovates to accommodate rapidly evolving technology. So, of course, we hear about these interesting projects of data centres at the bottom of the sea or in space. Now those have incredibly large CapEx. They're not commercially available quite yet, but some of the technology used to develop those might be. And so, it'd be interesting to see how that's going to be deployed in data centres on Earth whilst we try to colonise space.

So, I think there will be a lot of innovation coming out of these, whether you see them as pet projects, innovation, pure projects, research and development, they'll bring some of that tech back into everyday life, and it's going to change how we operate.

And then the other challenge, I think it's going to stay for a while, is environmental concerns around energy use. There's a lot of positive talk about more nuclear power, whether some people see this as clean power or not. The reality is, we just use a lot of power for everything. It's not just your data centres, right? We need more power, and realistically speaking, nuclear takes about 10 years, at least in the UK, so I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity in power generation, in diversity of power sources, in how you increase energy efficiency even further. There are some brilliant digital twin applications out there to help with your workload demands.

There's a lot of opportunity out there. I think it's just that this is a sector that historically has always adapted. And so that is one of the main points that we try to communicate to the government, is that where you do regulate, please be as flexible as you can, build that flexibility and that proportionality into regulation, because this is a sector that needs to be able to adapt like that. I don't know if you remember when ChatGPT dropped; it literally stopped functioning. It stopped because the demand was so high, right? So, they need to be able to respond quickly to whatever the next innovation might be. And the more these innovations are commercially applicable, the more the demand and therefore the more the need for data centres.

So, I think there's going to be a lot of that and that links to talent. You're going to need to find people who think things differently, a little bit outside the box. You need people who can think strategically and connect some of these things. I think gone are the days of an engineer in a data room who only thought about the data room, right? And there needs to be a bit more interlinking between people who work in data centres. At least I'm noticing it. I work with engineers all the way to the CFOs, sometimes the CEOs of these companies, because everything is becoming so connected.

Sarah Davenport

Yeah. And I think what you've done today is just opened up such an incredible window, as it were, into a part of the sector, policy, that is very under-talked about, but highly impactful. And I think that your point to the government around that they need to be this facilitator for the sector, not a blocker, is really, really powerful. And I don't underestimate how huge that task can be, as well as reframing what data centres are to everybody.

Luisa Cardani

Yeah, absolutely. And, guardrails are important too, because all you need is a couple of cowboys doing things in a dubious way to give the sector a really bad rep. So, I think what you want is the bare minimum standard of what is acceptable to everyone, which is beneficial for society and the environment.

And then each company specialises in different things. Some companies are incredibly sustainable, others really focus on security and resilience because they might be hosting government data, or they might be hosting incredibly powerful workloads that are of critical importance. We certainly know some of our members hosted some of the COVID-19 vaccine compute in their data centre. You want to make sure that's secure and resilient.

I think that's the beauty, right? You want an environment that sustains growth in an environmentally friendly way and incentivises investment and innovation as well. And that is the other side, right? Data centres are the confines of the infrastructure, but how you regulate what gets computed is going to affect the sector. Things like AI, copyright, data protection, all of these things will impact the sector, will impact how you do things. So there as well, we always say we want a pro-innovation, pro-growth regulatory regime with guardrails where it makes sense.

Sarah Davenport

I could talk about this for hours because I've learned so much. It's great to have an overarching view of the industry as well as the broader ecosystem. And Luisa, thank you so much for joining us today. It has been a brilliant podcast, a brilliant conversation, and I'm sure that listeners will get a lot from it. So, thank you so much.

Luisa Cardani

I'm glad. Thank you for having me.

Oli Coote

Thanks, Luisa. Great to see you.

This was an insightful conversation between Sarah Davenport, Oli Coote, and Luisa Cardani, covering the evolving landscape of the data centre sector as it matures into a cornerstone of the UK's national strategy. The discussion highlighted the sector’s transition from a "secretive" industry to a highly scrutinised component of Critical National Infrastructure, facing complex pressures from energy costs, geopolitical shifts, and the rapid advent of AI. Luisa underscored that the industry's future depends on systemic change, particularly in renewable power availability, and on a collaborative effort to "educate the educators" to build a diverse, sustainable talent pipeline that can keep pace with projected growth. Ultimately, the dialogue framed data centres not just as technical facilities, but as a vital, adaptive ecosystem that requires flexible, pro-innovation regulation to continue powering the UK's digital economy.