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Connect | APAC // DCD>Major Panel: Balancing sustainability and AI – Can data centers have it all?

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  • Energy & Sustainability
  • Open Session

Speakers

Darren Webb

Co-Founder & CEO, Evolution Data Centres

Darren webb resized

Darren Webb

Co-Founder & CEO, Evolution Data Centres

As Co-Founder and CEO, Darren’s role is to ensure that Evolution Data Centres delivers on its strategic vision to become the leading pan-Asian data centre platform, delivering digital growth, reliably and sustainably, into high growth markets (often referred to as Tier 2 markets). Evolution are actively developing projects today, across the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Darren’s career spans the full breadth of the digital infrastructure ecosystem, including Telco, Data Centre and Artificial Intelligence. Darren was the Asia Managing Director for IO Data Centres, where he had overall leadership for a modular-designed data center in Singapore. Darren led this business to net cash flow positive and ultimately to a successful exit.

In his time in telco, Darren delivered significant investment programmes, with budgets of over £500m, while leading Vodafone’s strategic investments across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Part of this role included Darren establishing the Vodafone Enterprise brand in the UAE. Prior to Vodafone, Darren was MD of Cable & Wireless for Asia, in addition to running their Global Enterprise sales channel, a business delivering annualised revenue of over £240m.

Along with his Evolution Fo-founder and team, Darren is passionate about culture in the workplace. He aspires for Evolution to be an organization where everyone is a driver and there are no passengers. All the team are responsible for moving Evolution forward every day in the right direction, he encourages all the team to take ownership and accountability. He is often heard saying and reminding himself, to enjoy the journey, rather than being obsessed with the destination.

Sustainability is a cornerstone of Darren’s approach, his goal is to drive change in the industry to deliver greener data centres (he doesn’t agree with, or like, the phrase “green data centres”). This ambition is brought to life in Evolution where every effort is made to minimize the environmental impact of every data center project that the company develops.

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The data center industry is facing an undeniable challenge—how to expand digital infrastructure at scale while delivering on sustainability commitments. The rapid adoption of AI is accelerating energy consumption, pushing power grids to their limits, and increasing demand for water-intensive cooling. Can operators build for AI without derailing decarbonization goals, or is the industry entering an era where sustainability takes a back seat to performance?

This panel will explore whether efficiency measures, renewable energy integration, and emerging technologies are enough to counter rising consumption or if a fundamental shift is required. What are the real trade-offs between sustainability and high-performance computing? Are today’s data centers designed for long-term balance, or will operators soon be forced to choose between resilience and environmental responsibility?