Data Center Summit puts stake in the emerging Southwest market
Data Center Frontier’s fourth annual Data Center Frontier Trends Summit is heading West. As a sister publication of Lightwave and owned by EndeavorB2B, Data Center Frontier Trends Summit will take place May 5–7, 2027, at the Renaissance Glendale Hotel & Spa in Glendale, Arizona, where it will co-locate with the Microgrid Knowledge event, which will bring the data center and distributed energy communities onto a shared show floor.
Endeavor announced the opening day of the 2026 Trends Summit in Reston, VA. At this year’s event, more than 500 data center professionals, including operators, developers, engineers, and capital providers, gathered to examine what it takes to build, power, and operate the infrastructure the AI era demands.
Converging on power
By collocating with the Microgrid Knowledge event—the first time either event has shared a floor with another brand—“is the most significant structural change in the Summit’s four-year history, and it reflects where the two audiences have been converging on their own: power.”
The two events will share an exhibit floor and select education sessions, giving attendees a single destination for the full power conversation: from grid interconnection to behind-the-meter generation and storage. Data center attendees gain direct access to an array of panels that look at various parts of the data center power equation: microgrid, energy, and utility expertise their projects increasingly depend on. Microgrid Knowledge attendees gain access to the largest and fastest-growing load on the grid, and to the operators and developers building it.
Each event will retain its own identity, editorial voice, and conference program. The two events will share the same show floor, a portion of the education, and networking opportunities between attendees.
Arizona: A new data center Destination
While Virginia remains a data center industry stronghold, the Southwest has become what industry watchers say is one of the fastest-growing data center corridors in North America, with Glendale and the greater Phoenix market drawing record development driven by land availability, transmission access, and an expanding energy generation mix.
Moving the Summit to Arizona puts the conversation where the next wave of capacity is being sited, permitted, powered, and built.
"Data Center Frontier has always followed the frontier — and right now that frontier runs straight through the desert Southwest," said Matt Vincent, Editor in Chief, Data Center Frontier. "Glendale puts us in the middle of one of the most consequential build markets in the country, at a moment when power strategy, site selection, and speed to energization are defining who wins. Moving to spring also lets us catch the industry earlier in its planning and capital cycle, when decisions are still being made rather than reported on. New geography, new timing, new conversations — this is the next data center frontier.”
Preparation for the 2027 Data Center Frontier Trends Summit is underway. A call for speakers, available at DCFtrends.com, will open August 19 and run through September 30. Registration for the event will open in September. Anyone who completes the 2027 interest form will receive news, pricing, and program updates.
