Featured Panel at Data Center Frontier 2026: The AI Factory in Practice: Designing and Operating at Scale

Stefan Raab, Senior Director of Business Development (AMER) at Equinix, joins an industry powerhouse panel to tackle one of digital infrastructure's most critical operational challenges: moving AI environments from blueprints into live production. Moderated by Matthew Vincent (Data Center Frontier), this high-stakes session brings together leaders across operations, construction, architecture, and interconnection to cut past theoretical designs and examine what it actually takes to run ultra-dense AI systems under real-world conditions.

Alongside Steve Altizer (Compu Dynamics), Bret Lehman (Lenovo), and Jeff Barber (Hedgehog USA), Stefan will share firsthand insights on navigating liquid cooling architectures and evolving power topologies at scale. The session will dive deep into where commissioning and handoffs create the greatest risk, how networking and orchestration are reshaping day-two operations, and why operational execution is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage in the AI era.