DCW 2026: hitting the biggest problems in data center predevelopment coordination
Raymond Xu
April 16, 2026 · 5 min read
DCW 2026
Apr 20–23 · Walter E. Washington Convention Center · D.C.
I’m Raymond, founder of Cliff. Next week I’m at Data Center World 2026 in D.C., trying to figure out which of the biggest problems in data center predevelopment coordination is the right one to tackle first. Here are the notes I’m flying out with.
Today is April 16, 2026. DCW runs Monday, April 20 through Thursday, April 23, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. The short version of what I’m hearing: power and time-to-power is the broadest pain in the room, approvals and community and policy is the second big one, and packet QA / completeness is a narrower sub-problem inside approvals.
The three wedges
Where the heat actually is.
De-rate / power
Urgency · Very high
Power access, interconnection timing, BYOP and on-site generation, curtailment and flexibility, utility lead-time mismatch.
DCW fit
Very high
County submission
Urgency · High but episodic
Permitting and zoning friction, community opposition, political approvals, changing regulatory landscape.
DCW fit
Medium
Packet QA
Urgency · Real, mostly downstream
Contradictions, missing exhibits, stale assumptions, comment-response churn.
DCW fit
Low to medium
A few things from the search
Power, community, agenda.
Power is still the dominant bottleneck.
CBRE says projects are stalled in planning because of permitting, zoning, and power procurement, and that BYOP / on-site generation is becoming essential. Bloom’s 2026 power report says power access is the single most important site-selection determinant, more than half of developers say getting power got harder in the last 12 months, and utilities think power comes 1.5 to 2 years later than developers expect in key hubs like Northern Virginia, the Bay Area, and Atlanta. Uptime says developers will not outrun the power shortage.
Community and policy risk is now first-order.
CBRE says community involvement is becoming a key driver in permitting and zoning approvals. The Harvard / MIT poll covered by Axios found that quality-of-life concerns mattered about twice as much as electricity prices in explaining support for local data centers. AP reported that Maine passed a one-year freeze on new large data centers on April 15, 2026. That is a strong signal that backlash is now real policy risk.
The DCW agenda mirrors that.
The official schedule is packed with sessions on grid constraints, microgrids, BYOP, flexibility, public policy, NIMBY, and approvals. I did not find much on packet completeness, comment-response workflow, or submission QA as a standalone theme. That is an inference from the official schedule mix.
How I’m reading it
Lead with power. Keep approvals as a second path.
- Lead with de-rate / power. That is the more legible conference story.
- Keep county submission as a second path, but talk about it as approval risk or permit-risk reduction, not as “submission readiness” alone.
- If I lead with packet QA on the general floor, I sound narrower than the room. If I lead with “we help you understand whether the fast power path is actually real,” I sound closer to the center of gravity.
People and sessions
Who I’m trying to find on the floor.
Power angle
Ram Nagappan, Oracle
Wed Apr 22, keynote
Site diligence, grid interconnection, power-plant architecture, BTM and islanded configurations.
Gene Alessandrini, CyrusOne
Tue Apr 21, 11:00 a.m.
Energy Allies. SVP of Energy & Location Strategy.
Todd Gayle, Applied Digital
Wed Apr 22, 10:00 a.m.
Power architecture for two 400 MW facilities.
James Reilly / Michael Stadler
Tue Apr 21, 10:00 a.m.
Data Center as Microgrid. One of the closest official sessions to the wedge.
Giri Iyer / Scott Coe
Wed Apr 22, 2:30 p.m.
Don't Let Your Flexibility Go to Waste. Tests whether people are thinking in flexibility economics.
Approvals angle
Buddy Rizer
Tue Apr 21, 2:00 p.m.
Managing Data Center Growth: A Public Sector Perspective. Loudoun-style politics.
Parker Slaybaugh / Tim Alborg
Wed Apr 22, 1:30 p.m.
Winning Over the 'Not In My Backyard' Crowd. Closest to the actual approval problem.
Jane Accomando / Danielle Burt, Morgan Lewis
Mon Apr 20, 2:45 p.m.
Navigating a Shifting National Regulatory Landscape.
Investor Briefing panel
Mon Apr 20, 3:15 p.m.
Not in My Backyard: Diffusing Tensions and Accelerating Approvals.
Find me at DCW
If you’re at DCW, say hi.
I'd rather have a 15-minute conversation on the floor than send you a deck. Reply to the contact form and I'll suggest a slot.