娇色导航

We are standing at a once-in-a-generation inflection point that will rival the most transformative infrastructure eras in US history. Fueled by the rise of AI, is being invested into the infrastructure needed to power the future, with companies projected to invest $5.2 trillion into data centers by 2030 to add 125 gigawatts of AI-related capacity.

This massive growth amounts to a reimagining of what critical infrastructure looks like in the AI era. At the center of this revolution is a new class of tech executives helping their companies not just keep up, but leap forward, by designing, securing, and scaling the digital foundations of tomorrow鈥檚 economy.

To dig into what this moment means, I had the privilege of moderating an engaging roundtable with five remarkable CxOs from companies that sit at the core of this transformation. We explored how CIOs and digital leaders can rise to the challenge and help shape the future of critical infrastructure in the AI era.

Joining the conversation were:

• Mike Adams, chief digital technology officer at Black & Veatch, which is helping engineer the future of energy, water, and data center infrastructure
• Carrie Busbee, 娇色导航at Core & Main, a specialized distributor of water, wastewater, storm drainage, and fire protection infrastructure
• Khalid Kark, field 娇色导航at Cloudflare, which helps protect and power the digital backbone of the internet
• Pragati Mathur, CDIO at ConocoPhillips, which is applying cutting-edge tech to ensure secure, sustainable energy production
• Katrina Redmond, 娇色导航at Eaton, which helps power the next generation of data centers

Hand-selected for their diverse infrastructure vantage points, each of these executives is leading in a space essential to this next chapter of American growth. Following are the unique insights, bold thinking, and real-world examples they shared about how their organizations are showing up to meet this moment.

Redefining value in the digital era

When it comes to driving value through IT, Cloudflare鈥檚 Kark has observed a shift in the equation for CIOs today. Modern CIOs must deliver more than the traditional IT mandate of cost savings and efficiency, Kark says. And they must do so through three interrelated lenses of value: 鈥淎re you making your organization smarter? Are you making your organization faster? Are you making your organization safer?鈥�

These pillars represent the expanded value narrative for digital leadership, one that is also redefining the playbook for CIOs and their teams.

鈥淥ur function, our roles, and the next iteration of these evolutions has got to be vastly different,鈥� Eaton鈥檚 Redmond says. 鈥淗ow do you keep the company safe and really pour on the speed? Classic IT organizations are agile discussions but waterfall mentalities, and we can鈥檛 operate in that way anymore. You can stand up these [AI] agents, and two聽minutes later they鈥檙e working and off doing their thing. We aren鈥檛 going to be delivering and functioning in the classic way that we鈥檝e done. System implementers, consultants 鈥� that whole paradigm is no longer.鈥�

Redmond says Eaton is leaning heavily into technology and AI to create more resiliency across its ecosystem, a common theme for all these IT leaders. They鈥檙e building AI capabilities not just as tools, but as strategic enablers. From energy efficiency and emissions reduction to process automation, customer experience, and knowledge management, AI is being embedded across functions. The result is a more responsive, data-driven organization that can pivot as circumstances evolve.

Being able to communicate that value is central for developing the capabilities that will allow organizations to be proactive and future-ready, Kark says. 鈥淪implifying the value story, clearly defining and articulating the value levers, and securing stakeholder buy-in are just as critical as consistent execution. In today鈥檚 environment of rapid change and growing complexity, organizations that can align around and operationalize their value narrative will be best positioned to lead.鈥�

Transforming the customer experience

A big part of that value story relates to how infrastructure connects to customer value. For Core & Main鈥檚 Busbee, that鈥檚 all about modernizing water delivery to critical infrastructure installations.

鈥淲ater is the reason people pick locales,鈥� Busbee says. 鈥淚t plays a vital role in the construction and operation of data centers because of its importance in cooling systems that regulate the heat generated by servers. Access to a sustainable water supply is a key consideration when selecting data center locations, influencing both design and long-term operational viability.鈥�

She explains that Core & Main takes a customer-centric approach, co-creating solutions with its infrastructure clients to drive faster and better coordinated construction of these mega projects. 鈥淭hese types of projects are highly complex and fast-paced, but we add significant value to the process because of our consultative approach, project management capabilities, and product breadth,鈥� she says. 聽

Eaton鈥檚 Redmond notes that the power management company is using data insights from the hardware it sells to improve uptime for customers, as well as to inform future product development.

鈥淲e have over 30 distribution facilities globally,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o we have a lot of focus on, how do we simplify our architecture? How do we simplify the work components of what we create from a hardware perspective? And then, how do we help customers advance themselves quickly enough in the context of managing the changes that we鈥檙e making to the products? We鈥檙e constantly challenging ourselves from a future-ready perspective and how we鈥檙e engineering and projecting three, five, and ten years down the road.鈥�

Building trust to push game-changing ideas

These CIOs also recognize opportunities to transform the internal customer experience. One of the challenges Adams has encountered at Black & Veatch is that some of the projects in the field are very focused on process and a rigid way of doing things. 鈥淔or all good reasons,鈥� he notes, 鈥渂ut that tends to run counter to thinking outside the box and identifying opportunities to disrupt in a positive way.鈥�

What鈥檚 more, he says, many of the people who are thinking about the full potential of the technology 鈥渟it in an office like I do. So you have the great divide and chasm of needs versus how to fulfill and maybe change the game in the field.鈥�

Using the example of software development, Adams highlights that people often tell you one thing about how they interact with software but, based on analytics, behave very differently when they use it. This is why it鈥檚 important to get out and see how people interact with technology, in the office and in the field, not just listen to what they say they need. Only then can you deliver solutions that make a difference.

ConocoPhillips鈥� Mathur says that鈥檚 the approach her team has taken to build trust and improve adoption of new technologies in the field. In one recent instance, they spent time with field operators, observing their workflows, listening to their challenges, and getting a better sense of the problems they face. They were then able to translate their pain points into actionable opportunities for improvement.

Trust-building is foundational to addressing all these challenges. As Cloudflare鈥檚 Kark puts it, 鈥淲ithout trust, you鈥檙e not going to be able to change behaviors. Trust is absolutely bedrock.鈥�

Mathur鈥檚 team has seen the impact firsthand. 鈥淣ow when you pick up the phone and call someone in the field, they鈥檒l hear you out. Where they used to maybe say, 鈥榊ou IT people don鈥檛 get it,鈥� now they listen and try to understand, and we have constructive conversations back and forth. There鈥檚 a little bit of purposeful creative tension. They push, we push, and then we get to a solution.鈥�

Managing the edge while ensuring security at scale

As the digital perimeter expands, managing edge infrastructure has become a puzzle with no one-size-fits-all solution. Many organizations grapple with how to divide responsibilities between cloud and edge systems while maintaining consistency, security, and performance.

This complexity is especially pronounced in environments with distributed assets, where field systems and IT are converging rapidly. These leaders are rethinking what belongs at the edge, what stays in private data centers, and what shifts to public cloud. They鈥檙e also mindful of the intensifying threat landscape.

鈥淚f everything鈥檚 edge-enabled, you鈥檙e only as good as the third parties you鈥檙e working with,鈥� Redmond says, pointing to the lessons of the CrowdStrike incident. 鈥淭hat sort of explodes this perimeter of the vectors that can come at you. And then you鈥檝e got AI being used not just to help you, but to hurt you. It鈥檚 really a bigger challenge than I can remember.鈥�

Indeed, Kark warned that the time from to 22 minutes, while most companies take weeks to patch. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing unprecedented scale and speed,鈥� he says, citing Cloudflare鈥檚 experience blocking complex threats and .

At Black & Veatch, Adams says, 鈥淲e鈥檙e looking at this as a defense-in-depth approach. We鈥檙e looking for those big planes of risk and trying to prioritize cyber hygiene and maturity, because a lot of what we鈥檙e seeing now is, by the time a vulnerability is announced, it鈥檚 already been exploited in the wild.鈥�

As a result of this heightened risk, Mathur says ConocoPhillips modernized their entire cyber program. 鈥淲ith anything we鈥檙e building, cyber is fully integrated, along with digital. Both are key foundational components in every implementation.鈥�

The human dimension: Building a future-ready workforce

All these efforts hinge on a skilled and adaptable workforce. Redmond says Eaton is acutely aware that the average age of its workforce is higher than in many other industries. As a result, the company has prioritized building a future-ready workforce, both through training and by leveraging AI to capture critical institutional knowledge and mitigate single points of failure. The company is also looking at how to leverage agentic AI.

鈥淛ust as we鈥檙e challenging ourselves from a future-ready perspective in terms of our products, we鈥檙e also looking at how we鈥檙e managing our knowledge base today to project three, five, ten years into the future and determine whether we鈥檙e making the right bets,鈥� she says.

One way Black & Veatch is working 鈥渢o create some tailwinds against those headwinds of competency loss鈥� from retiring employees is by recording and transcribing videos in which principal engineers share their knowledge. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a way to transcribe and leverage generative and agentic AI to democratize that information across newer engineers out of college,鈥� Adams says.

Busbee says Core & Main holds in-person training for more than 20% of its associates annually, even bringing people back from retirement to conduct training courses at their St. Louis headquarters.

Adding to the talent succession issue is the fact that younger generations often lack interest in legacy infrastructure roles.

鈥淭oday鈥檚 top talent increasingly values flexibility 鈥� in work environments, career paths, and learning opportunities,鈥� Kark says. 鈥淩ather than specializing deeply in a single domain, many in the younger workforce prefer diverse experiences and adaptable career trajectories. I call them serial specialists. You specialize for a few years, and then you move on to a new role where you鈥檙e learning something new.鈥�

He sees an opportunity to leverage AI models to aggregate and track these specialized skill sets and capabilities so that it鈥檚 available for the serial specialists joining the workforce.

Kark shares another data point with significant consequences for a future-ready workforce: The half-life of a technical skill set is now estimated at just 2.5 years. That means organizations must invest heavily in upskilling and retraining 鈥� or risk obsolescence.

The mindset for success

The industry has gone through a tremendous amount of change over the past three years. And as Kark says, it鈥檚 also the least amount of change today鈥檚 CIOs will see in their careers. The ability to handle change and lead through it is key.

Technical knowledge and skills are important, but given the speed, scale, and complexity of change, a mindset shift must come first. The executives all touted the importance of curiosity, creativity, initiative, and a learning mindset.

Adams says his senior leadership is focusing on developing and strengthening these and other essential human factors through training on areas like 鈥渉ow leadership properly engage in crucial conversations to ensure progress, build followership, and find common areas of agreement that can lead to moving the ball forward.鈥� He adds that professional and personal resilience is something everyone needs to keep building to maintain balance and calm in the storm.

As these visionary leaders are making clear, this is not business as usual 鈥� it鈥檚 a reinvention of the infrastructure that powers our economy, our security, and our future. The scale and significance echo the boldest infrastructure eras in American history. Just as the highway system enabled the mass movement of people and goods, today鈥檚 infrastructure build-out is powering the mass acceleration of intelligence, automation, and innovation at scale. But this time, the pace is blistering.

As Redmond points out, 鈥淚f people are talking about more than a day鈥檚 turnaround and delivery of something, it鈥檚 too late. The way we think, the way we implement, the way we deliver is different now. Those organizations that embrace it will do well. The organizations that try to fight it and stay in the same old mold will be in trouble.鈥�

CIOs will chart the course

As we stand on the cusp of this transformative era, it鈥檚 clear infrastructure is being reimagined. The convergence of AI, digital innovation, and historic investment is forging a new backbone for our economy, one that demands speed, resilience, and imagination. The companies that recognize this and empower their technology leaders to lead from the front will be the ones that define the next chapter.

At the very tip of this spear are the CIOs and digital executives who are charting the course. They鈥檙e playing a crucial role in determining how to allocate their company鈥檚 investments wisely and strategizing when and where to go on offense and when to recognize that the best offense is having a good defense. They鈥檙e not just implementing tools; they鈥檙e engineering advantage and building platforms that accelerate innovation, strengthen security, and unlock new business models. This is their moment to shine, not behind the scenes, but at the head of the table.

The blueprint is being drawn now. The digital foundations are being poured. And those bold enough to lead in this moment 鈥� those who embrace the pace, seize the opportunity, and reinvent boldly 鈥� won鈥檛 just adapt to the future. They鈥檒l build it.