Behdad Bahrami of Edgecom Energy winning the Building Operations category at the 2026 Data Center World Innovation Challenge, Powered by ABB.

For years, energy was largely treated as a utility cost within data center operations: power arrived, servers ran, and operators focused on uptime. Today, that model is breaking down.

As AI-driven demand accelerates and gigawatt-scale developments emerge, access to power is becoming one of the defining challenges facing the industry. For Behdad Bahrami, Co-Founder and CEO of Edgecom Energy, the next evolution of data center operations will depend on something many operators have historically paid little attention to: active energy management.

Edgecom Energy develops software that optimizes how large facilities consume, store, and interact with electricity. Its platform combines energy forecasting, demand response, battery optimization, and microgrid management to help operators reduce costs and actively participate in energy markets, rather than simply consuming power passively.

“The data center operators that can get the power they need are going to win,” Bahrami says. “And the operators that can manage energy most efficiently are going to win long term.”

Edgecom Energy won the Building Operations category of the 2026 Data Center World Innovation Challenge powered by ABB. The Innovation Challenge brought together 24 startups to pitch their data center innovations Shark Tank-style to a panel of judges, with winners selected across multiple categories for their potential impact on next-generation infrastructure.

From Utility Cost to Strategic Capability

While the company is relatively new to the data center market, its expertise comes from nearly a decade spent helping large industrial energy consumers optimize operations across sectors including steel manufacturing, cement production, mining, and commercial facilities.

Now, it’s applying those capabilities to digital infrastructure.

“One of the big issues with data centers is how they’re going to impact the grid that everyone else depends on,” he says.

Scale Reshapes the Grid Relationship

Whereas traditional enterprise data centers consume five or ten megawatts, today data center campuses increasingly measure in hundreds of megawatts.

At those scales, facilities draw not just on local energy infrastructure but influence entire regional energy systems.

That shift is forcing operators to think differently.

Historically, securing power meant finding suitable locations with existing grid capacity. Today, many developers face years-long interconnection queues and increasing uncertainty around when electricity will become available. As a result, data centers are building their own generation assets and deploying microgrids to support operations before permanent grid connections are established.

Data Centers Become Energy Generators

“Data centers are essentially becoming energy companies at their core,” Bahrami says.

Managing energy ecosystems is a complex undertaking. Although battery systems, generators, turbines, and renewable assets are readily accessible, seamlessly integrating them into a stable and efficient operational framework remains a formidable challenge.

"People think it’s easy,” Bahrami says. “Buy some hardware and make it work. But it’s actually very complicated.”

Microgrids must operate independently when necessary, coordinate multiple energy assets, and eventually integrate with utility networks and the electric grid. That complexity increases further as developers expand across multiple regions, each with different regulations, market structures, and utility requirements.

A Fragmented and Fast-Moving Energy Landscape

For Edgecom, one of the biggest challenges is the absence of a standardized playbook. Different countries, states, and grid operators continue to develop their own approaches to data center growth, creating a fragmented landscape for operators and technology providers alike.

“It’s still the wild west,” Bahrami says.

Bahrami believes greater coordination will eventually emerge through national and international frameworks that establish standards around siting, grid participation, and energy management.

Until then, operators must navigate a highly complex stakeholder environment. Utilities, transmission operators, distribution companies, regulators, municipalities, energy suppliers, and technology vendors all play critical roles in bringing new facilities online.

“Usually where things slow down is getting all the stakeholders aligned,” he says.

Efficiency Is Becoming a Competitive Advantage

One reason Bahrami remains optimistic amid these challenges is the increasing focus on operational efficiency.

Historically, data center operators prioritized reliability above almost everything else. They overprovisioned backup systems heavily for redundancy. They could afford to because energy represented a relatively small share of total operating costs.

The economics of AI are changing that equation.

“The lowest kilowatt-hour per token is going to matter,” Bahrami says.

As competition intensifies among hyperscalers and AI infrastructure providers, energy efficiency is becoming a direct business driver rather than only a sustainability concern.

Designing Energy Strategy Earlier in the Stack

That shift is driving greater interest in technologies that can actively manage energy consumption, optimize procurement strategies, and improve participation in electricity markets.

Edgecom works with operators from the earliest design stages, helping determine battery size, generation strategy, and energy asset configuration before construction begins.

“The earlier we can get involved, the bigger impact we can have,” Bahrami explains.

Experience has taught the company that energy projects rarely prove as simple as vendors describe and operators hope.

“Everybody makes it seem more plug-and-play than it really is,” he says.

In reality, successful deployments depend on coordinating multiple technologies, communication protocols, control systems, and operational stakeholders. Fixing mistakes later can be expensive and difficult.

The Future: Data Centers as Energy-Controlled Systems

Looking ahead, Bahrami expects the industry to face continuing bottlenecks.

Grid connections, generation capacity, transformers, and other infrastructure components have all emerged as constraints at different points during the industry’s recent growth cycle.

“We’ll hit bottlenecks, then we’ll smash them, and then new bottlenecks will form,” he says.

While those constraints may slow progress temporarily, Bahrami believes innovation will continue to unlock new solutions.

The bigger transformation, however, may occur inside the data centers themselves.

He predicts future facilities will operate dedicated energy management functions in much the same way they operate network operations centres today.

“Every data center is going to need an energy operations center,” he says.

The facilities of the future won’t simply consume electricity. They will forecast, optimize, trade, coordinate, and actively participate in broader energy ecosystems.

At the same time, Bahrami believes one aspect of operations will remain surprisingly unchanged: Humans will remain central to decision-making for years to come.

“The AI will give us insights,” he says. “But we’re still going to have humans in the pilot seat making those final decisions.”

For Edgecom, that future represents both a challenge and an opportunity. As data centers become increasingly important participants within energy systems, operational excellence will no longer be measured solely by uptime.

It will also be measured by how intelligently facilities consume, manage, and contribute power back to the grid around them.