Data, Infrastructure and Sustainability Summit UK
2025 Agenda
Tuesday, October 14
Artificial Intelligence is fundamentally transforming IT infrastructure, fuelling a higher demand for compute power and a surge in AI workloads, necessitating significant scaling of cloud services and private networks to handle vast amounts of data. This opening panel session will dive into how CIOs are reimagining their tech frameworks to manage unprecedented data demands and dealing with legacy infrastructure in the process – both effectively and sustainably. Expect candid insights, practical strategies and the diverse paths to navigating this evolving technological landscape – at speed.
– How can CIOs and technology leaders rise to the challenge and shape the future of critical infrastructure in the AI era?
– How to best assess the development of next-generation infrastructure to support these demands?
– Going beyond cost savings and efficiency: how are you making your organisation smarter, faster and safer as you scale to meet the demands of AI?
With decisions on energy consumption, space utilisation, raw material use and infrastructure investment now impacting both business performance and environmental outcomes – how do you design and scale the digital foundations of tomorrow’s economy in a sustainable way?
Organisations today are undergoing a profound transformation in how they architect and manage their IT landscapes. To meet new market realities, they are moving beyond traditional on-premises setups, adopting hybrid environments, expanding into multi-cloud, and increasingly diversifying with specialized, regional, and AI-optimized infrastructure providers.
This keynote will explore how the emma cloud management platform empowers enterprises to thrive in this new era of complexity.
Data management is no longer a backend operation. It has become a strategic cornerstone for shaping innovation, efficiency and compliance.
As enterprises scale their digital transformation journeys, CIOs face the dual challenge of managing vast, complex datasets whilst maintaining agility, security and good governance. Join this opening panel session to hear comprehensive strategies for robust data management, effective governance frameworks and the ethical handling of data to balance the speed of innovation with accountability.
– Comprehensive data management strategies: what adaptive solutions are needed to ensure data integrity, accessibility and security in a data-driven world?
– Ethical AI governance: with the evolution of cloud-first strategies, real-time integration and AI-driven automation, how are CIOs overcoming heightened concerns over data privacy, data ethics and regulatory compliance?
– Scalability and flexibility: how can IT leaders design scalable and flexible infrastructure to handle growing data volumes from diverse sources?
– Performance optimisation: how can technologies like in-memory databases, edge computing, distributed computing to support real-time analytics be used to drive meaningful insights?
– Modernisation and Innovations: As data continues to shape the future, how can we leverage technology advancements to enhance scalability and ensure compliance?
Data sovereignty has become a critical business issue driven by AI growth, public cloud adoption, and geopolitical tensions. Organisations face rising risks around compliance, service disruption, and trust, making data location and governance central to strategy. Pure Storage helps address these challenges with flexible, hybrid data architectures that combine sovereign control and cloud agility.
Drawing on the results of Foundry’s latest State of the CIO survey, this presentation examines how CIOs are adapting to shifting expectations and pressures, and where their priorities now lie. It reveals the growing influence of the CIO across the business, investment focus areas such as AI, data and infrastructure, and the persistent challenges of skills shortages, resilience and sustainability.
The session provides a clear perspective on how UK CIOs can shape long-term impact while meeting immediate demands in what could be a make-or-break tech moment in history.
The integration of AI and cloud services has led to rising costs – or “cloud-flation.” These unanticipated expenses are straining IT budgets, making it imperative for CIOs to implement robust cost management strategies. Join this panel session to dive into monitoring cloud usage, optimising resource allocation and strategies to negotiate favourable terms with service providers. This session breaks it down to ensure your cloud investments drive real business value through smarter decision-making.
– With spending on the Cloud higher than CIO projections, how can you streamline, simplify and align the company’s cloud-based workloads, data and analytics to optimise like a technology organisation?
– How is AI altering the cloud economics equation and what can IT leaders do to sharpen their cloud strategies and integrate tools to monitor and manage costs?
– How to navigate tough conversations both internally and with vendors to streamline usage, account for legacy structures and plan for flexibility?
– Avoiding vendor lock-ins, regular auditing to uncover hidden costs and insights to adapt cloud strategies in real-time, reducing the risk of unnecessary expenses or reliance on inflexible services
With global power demand from data centres set to increase by as much as 165% by 2030, compared with 2023 (Goldman Sachs Research) and energy usage now being a top concern for 53.5% of business leaders (Seagate) – how can technology leaders drive energy efficiency measures through optimising data centre resources?
What can be done to adopt energy efficient technologies and practices as well as investments in green data centres that use renewable energy?
And why location to renewable energy sources should be a key consideration when planning new data centre deployments. Hear first-hand insights from an IT leader who has walked the walk to balance performance needs with environmental responsibilities. Stay one step ahead, as the long-term ROI of adopting energy-efficient solutions becomes harder to ignore.
Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI reportedly consumed 185,000 gallons of water during the training of GPT-3. With AI driving an increase in data centre demand, water usage in data centres is a growing concern for CIOs, with its importance in cooling systems that regulate the heat generated by servers.
Attend this session to hear what strategies and water-efficient cooling technologies are being implemented by one such leader and the key considerations when selecting data centre locations, influencing both design and long-term operational viability.
As enterprises embrace hybrid, multi-cloud, and specialised cloud strategies to power innovation and agility, complexity is inevitable — but chaos doesn’t have to be. The next critical step is building the financial discipline, governance, and operational intelligence needed to harness that complexity without letting costs spiral out of control.
Over lunch we will explore how organizations can transform a fragmented cloud landscape into a strategic asset.
What were once considered potential risks from inaction on data sovereignty are now looming realities. Service disruption, foreign government interference, regulatory penalties, and financial/reputational damage are top of mind. It’s time to act in order to safeguard resilience, innovation, and trust in a new era where control over data is set to become a defining battleground for businesses and nations alike.
This lunch is a chance to exchange perspectives with peers, discuss the future of data, and build valuable connections with fellow leaders while enjoying a relaxed dining setting.
This series of interactive roundtable discussions offers a unique opportunity for technology leaders to connect, share insights, and tackle today’s biggest challenges together. Each table will focus on a key theme shaping data, infrastructure and sustainability, allowing participants to exchange strategies, discuss real-world experiences, and gain fresh perspectives from peers facing similar opportunities and obstacles.
This roundtable examines AI’s parallel challenges and opportunities: optimising the financial, energy and resource costs of rapidly scaling IT infrastructure, while applying AI to a broad set of use cases with tremendous potential for positive impact, and leveraging it in support of sustainable and resilient growth.
Join this roundtable to explore how to manage vast, complex datasets whilst maintaining agility, security and good governance.
As organisations accelerate digital transformation, many discover an unintended consequence: cloud-flation — rising and unpredictable cloud costs driven by growing complexity, inefficiency, and fragmented governance. In this roundtable we will discuss why cloud-flation occurs, how it impacts strategic initiatives, and what leaders can do to maintain control.
Join this roundtable to explore how to use data analytics to track and reduce your carbon footprints, enhance resource efficiency and support sustainability goals.
This roundtable discussion will focus on addressing new threats, evolving compliance requirements, and building resilience against emerging risks using AI.
With efforts in AI, cloud and emerging technologies hinged on a skilled and adaptable workforce, how are IT leaders prioritising building a future-ready workforce?
This session will explore how technology leaders can drive workforce development, bridge the skills gap, and adapt to evolving demands to equip their teams with the necessary skills to manage and innovate within these domains.
With addressing the skills gap becoming critical for maintaining a competitive edge and ensuring the successful implementation of new technologies – hear how CIOs can manage the human dimension to shape tomorrow’s workforce
CIOs are using AI to improve operations, boost productivity, lower costs, improve customer experience and foster innovation. But how can IT leaders strategically leverage AI to enhance IT infrastructure planning and operations, to manage data better, automate internal processes and creating efficiencies?
Join this session to hear strategies for measuring and optimising AI-enabled IT applications, how its reshaping operations and decision making, making it a key driver in IT business success. Expect candid insights, practical strategies, and maybe even a little AI myth-busting along the way!
Sustainability is no longer a side initiative—it’s a core part of digital strategy. By 2027, 65% of CIOs will be tasked with embedding ESG objectives into technology projects, shaping the future of responsible innovation (IDC).
Modernising tech stacks is essential for achieving these sustainability goals, including adopting energy-efficient hardware, leveraging virtualisation to reduce physical server needs and implementing software solutions that optimise resource usage. Join this session to hear how one CIO is on the journey of assessing their current infrastructure, identifying areas where sustainable technologies can be integrated to reduce their environmental footprint. One green step at a time!
As CIOs strive to align digital infrastructure with ESG goals, sustainable asset lifecycle management becomes critical. A fundamental shift is taking place in how we think about data infrastructure – not as a trade-off between cost and sustainability, but as an opportunity to optimise for both. So how should you evaluate the environmental impact of your IT hardware, data centres and infrastructure?
Join this session to walk-through the journey, from procurement and deployment to maintenance, reuse, circularity and end-of-life disposal. At a time where data centres are becoming one of the most energy-intensive sectors in the digital economy, hear practical strategies to stay ahead of emerging ESG and cost challenges in a rapidly evolving tech landscape.
With rising investor and regulatory scrutiny, CIOs are being asked to deliver credible ESG metrics around IT – but is it that simple to calculate the carbon footprint in complex processes? How can you find it when you use multiple providers across several regions?
This session will delve in to the tools and standards for IT-specific carbon accounting (Scope 2/3 emissions); how to best align with the UK Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) framework; how to integrate emissions data from cloud providers, colocation vendors, and internal systems; and embed ESG metrics into IT governance and performance KPIs. Hear how to use data driven sustainability and include carbon accounting into IT decision-making.
Many enterprise CIOs are seeking out the ideal platforms for various applications as they relook to manage workloads and place them on the right infrastructure in the age of AI–whether that’s in a private cloud, an industry cloud, within their own data centres, through a managed service provider, on the edge, or orchestrated in a multi-cloud architecture.
With decisions largely driven by the need to maximise performance with scalable and flexible infrastructure, while not losing track of costs, how do you navigate this landscape to right-size for your business? Join this closing panel session to hear candid insight into decision making, what worked, what didn’t and how to pick the right partner!
