The iMasons Innovation Podcast Thought Leadership

How can data centres go beyond "less harmful" and become net positive for energy, carbon, water and the communities around them?  

In this episode of the iMasons Innovation Podcast, Romain Tranchant is joined by Colin Rohlfing | LinkedIn (Director of Sustainable and Regenerative Development) and Robert Sty, PE, SCPM, LEED AP | LinkedIn (Global Data Center Practice Director) from HDR Inc. They explore what regenerative design means for digital infrastructure and how it can be put into practice.  

We discuss: 

 - HDR's site assessment tool: drop a pin and pull in 125 datasets and 40 calculators covering climate, flood risk, carbon, water, air quality and community health 

 - The energy–water trade-off, from grid emissions to closed-loop liquid cooling  

- What "water positive" and regenerative water design really look like  

- Acoustics and noise: the next frontier for community impact  

- Thermal energy networks: turning data centre waste heat into a resource for hospitals, offices and homes 

 - Why regenerative design needs to become table stakes, not a chapter in a sustainability report  

🔗 Learn more: https://www.hdrinc.com/services/sustainability-resiliency/regenerative-design  

🤝 Join the conversation: become an iMasons member at https://imasons.org   

Underwater data centers. AI that costs more to run than the humans it replaces. Two founders, two very different bets on where AI infrastructure goes next. 

In this episode of Meet the Startups, iMasons’ Head of Innovation, Romain Tranchant sits down with two companies from the iMasons Innovation Accelerator:  

🔹 Seabase — Rilley McAdams, Co-Founder & CEO  

Building subsea AI infrastructure — bringing low-latency, high-density compute into major metro areas by using ports and ocean cooling instead of traditional land-based data centers.  

🔹 Mavvrick — Safi Siddiqui, Co-Founder & CTO Building the missing economic layer for AI infrastructure — helping operators track cost, usage and margin across hybrid (cloud + private) environments, down to the cost per token and per agent. 

Together, they make the case that the next wave of AI infrastructure isn't just about building bigger — it's about building smarter, cheaper, and closer to the people using it. 

In this episode:

• Why ports are the next AI infrastructure category 
• How subsea compute slashes both CapEx and OpEx
• why "cost per token" is the metric that decides who wins · the hidden economics of running AI hybrid (cloud + private)
• What happens when AI agents start costing more than human employees
• Predictions on GPUs, chips, and where AI infrastructure is headed in 5 years

The views, opinions, and product or vendor comparisons shared by our guest speakers are their own and do not reflect an endorsement or official position by Infrastructure Masons (iMasons). 

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Learn more and get involved: 
Upcoming iMasons events: Events – Infrastructure Masons

Learn more about StartUp Accelerator

Join iMasons: Members – Infrastructure Masons 

For members: Feed | iMasons Community | iMasons  

 

Building a data center used to mean calling the local utility and asking for power. That model is breaking down — and developers are being forced to become power companies themselves.

In this episode, host Romain Tranchant talks with Raffy J. Ohannesian, CFO and Head of Strategy at Network Environments Inc. (part of the Rialto Holdings family alongside GRA and Apex Critical Power), about why power — not land — has become the defining constraint on AI data center development. Raffy traces today's AI power crunch back through crypto mining and even Pixar-era animation rendering, explains why utilities can no longer keep pace with hyperscale demand, and unpacks the real tradeoffs between gas turbines and nat gas reciprocating engines as developers rush to build power on-site. He also breaks down how operators are de-risking massive bets on equipment, land, and tenants, and where nuclear and SMRs fit into the next decade of data center power.

Topics covered: why power has replaced land as the real constraint on data center growth, how crypto mining set the template for today's AI compute boom, gas turbines vs. nat gas reciprocating engines, the hidden risks in buying power equipment on spec, and the return of nuclear and microgrids.

Learn more about Network Environments at Network Environments , or get involved with iMasons at https://imasons.org 

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Join iMasons: https://imasons.org/community/members/  

Already a member? Go to: https://imasons.mobilize.io/main/groups/112275/lounge

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Infrastructure Masons (iMasons) is an international non-profit association of professionals dedicated to creating a superior digital legacy for everyone.

 

Join iMasons: https://imasons.org/community/members/ 

The last eight months have marked an important period of transformation for iMasons — building the people, leadership, and operational structure to power the organization's next phase across Policy, the Social Accord, Power, and Innovation. In this update, Cyre Mercedes Quinones and Romain Tranchant walk through how that structure is coming together across iMasons' one mission and six core initiatives, with a clear goal: not just more activity, but real outcomes.

This is also a direct call to action: iMasons can't get there alone. Whether it's applying for a steering committee, joining a working group, or sharing your impact story, the next phase of this work depends on members and partners stepping up and getting involved.

🌍 Climate Accord — decarbonization and carbon accounting across the industry — climateaccord.org

⚡ Power Consortium — accelerating time to power in partnership with utility providers — imasons.org/initiatives/power-consortium

💡 Innovation — hackathons, the startup accelerator, and pitch competitions — imasons.org/initiatives/innovation

🤝 Social Accord — building trust with the communities we operate in — imasons.org/social-accord

🎓 Foundation — developing the next generation of industry talent — imasons.org/initiatives/people/imasons-foundation

🏛️ Policy Exchange — bringing industry and policymakers to the same table — https://imasons.org/initiatives/global-policy/

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Steering committee applications are now open, and there are hackathons, pitch competitions, and conferences coming up all year. Get involved below:

Social Accord – Founding Steering Committee applications: imasons.org/social-accord-founding-steering-committee-application

Policy Forum – Founding Steering Committee applications: imasons.org/policy-forum-founding-steering-committee-application

Innovation Exchange Steering Committee:https://imasons.org/innovation-exchange-founding-steering-committee-application/

 

Community Impact Stories: imasons.org/impact-stories

Hackathons: imasons.org/initiatives/innovation/hackathons

Startup Accelerator Program: imasons.org/initiatives/innovation/startup-accelerator

Pitch Competitions: imasons.org/initiatives/innovation/pitch-competitions

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iMasons LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/infrastructure-masons 

Most people picture a chatbot when they hear "AI." Eric Topham, CEO and co-founder of OctaiPipe, says that's exactly the wrong model for running a data center — and it's costing operators real efficiency gains.
 
OctaiPipe is a physical AI company applying reinforcement learning to data center cooling systems. In this conversation, host Romain Tranchant talks with Eric about why large language models are the wrong architecture for controlling physical systems, what it actually takes to build AI models grounded in physics and risk, and why trust — not technology — is still the biggest barrier to automated control in data centers.
 
Topics covered:

• What AI actually is, and isn't, beyond the chatbot hype.
• How OctaiPipe's models predict and control cooling systems in real time.
• Why OctaiPipe built an edge-first, privacy-preserving architecture instead of processing data in the cloud. The real, empirical savings potential in legacy sites, and why headline "40% savings" claims rarely hold up.
• Why trust is the biggest barrier to AI-driven control in data centers. What operators and the public still get wrong about what AI can and can't do.
   
  If you work in data center operations, sustainability, or infrastructure investment, this is a grounded look at where AI can actually move the needle in physical infrastructure, and where it can't.
   
  Follow the iMasons podcast for more conversations with the people leading data center innovation.
  
  

iMasons' Global Director of Innovation, Romain Tranchant, delivers the Innovation Committee's Q3 update — recapping the upcoming AI-to-Grid research paper, the first-ever iMasons hackathon series, and what's coming through year-end.

Plus: Startup Accelerator updates, upcoming Pitch competitions, and how to get involved in iMasons' EMEA and APAC programming.

Guests:

Ashley Dirou (Grundfos) — on running Grundfos' first-ever Data Center Hackathon challenge with students at SMU

Angela Bee Chan (Hackatons International) — on the "Elephant Voices" Hackathon with National Geographic Society and Open Compute Project (OCP).

Where do you put a data center when the grid queue is seven years long and the neighbours are already pushing back? Three founders say: the ocean floor, the job site, and cislunar orbit.

In this episode of iMasons' Innovation Exchange, three infrastructure pioneers make the case for AI's next physical frontier:

Riley McAdams (Seabase) on modular compute pods deployed on the seafloor near ports and cable landing stations — turning warm coastal water into a cooling advantage and sidestepping NIMBY fights entirely.

Duhita Kothe (Crusoe) on the labor crisis behind hyperscale construction, and how autonomous excavators, robotic welders, and fleet robotics are closing a skilled-labor gap on remote, multi-thousand-person job sites.

Chris Stott (Lonestar Space) on building the first sovereign data storage network in orbit — from the ISS to cislunar space — with free cooling, uninterrupted solar power, and a legal case for data sovereignty that doesn't exist on Earth.

Then all three join a live panel to debate collaboration vs. competition, how you get infrastructure right the first time when you can't just send someone to fix it, environmental impact from synthetic reefs to carbon credits in orbit, and what happens at end-of-life for a data center you can't easily walk away from.

If you think you know what a data center looks like, this conversation will change your mind — three times over.

Follow iMasons' Innovation Exchange for more conversations on the future of infrastructure.

In this episode of the iMasons Podcast, host Romain Tranchant sits down with Luis Schilling, CEO of Tropical IT, and Andrew Jones, EVP of Sales, to tackle one of the most pressing challenges facing the data center industry today — supply chain. 

From structural inefficiencies and fragmented procurement to the concept of "supply flow," Luis and Andrew break down why the traditional supply chain model is failing global enterprise and what a smarter, more connected approach looks like in practice. 

They also explore Latin America as an emerging and often misunderstood market for AI infrastructure investment — covering clean energy availability, engineering talent, evolving regulations, and why early movers have a significant advantage. 

In this episode: 

• Why supply chain is a global problem that power and talent shortages are not 
• The difference between supply chain and supply flow 
• How technology and platform integration can remove procurement friction 
• The role of AI and predictive analytics in forecasting hardware needs 
• Latin America as a data center growth market — myths vs. reality 
• Why Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay are attracting AI infrastructure investment 
• How to simplify technology procurement across the Americas 

Guests:  

Luis Schilling, CEO, Tropical IT 

Andrew Jones, EVP of Sales, Tropical IT 

Moderator:  Romain Tranchant, iMasons Innovation Committee Chair 

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Infrastructure Masons (iMasons) is a global, non-profit, professional association of individuals connected and empowered to build a greater digital future for all. 

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