Designing the Cloud: Power, Infrastructure, and the Role of Architects

By bringing people together within the Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) industry and experts from AI-related fields, the ‘AI Salon’ series hopes to foster productive discussion and explore solutions for leveraging AI technology in AECO by bridging the gap between practice and academic research. This four-part series aims to create archives and, ultimately, publications / whitepapers from these salon sessions to share with the broader public and help push the industry into wider technology adoption.

Artificial intelligence may feel intangible, but the infrastructure behind it is profoundly physical. Our fifth salon examines the key question remains: what role do architects play in shaping the cloud? Often treated as purely technical facilities delivered by developers and engineers, data centers have traditionally sat at the margins of architectural discourse. This salon brings together voices from research, industry, and development to examine how these infrastructures are designed, financed, and built. The conversation will explore whether architects can meaningfully shape this emerging typology—or whether the future of the cloud is being designed elsewhere.

Speakers:
Nicolas Rader, COO, FLEXNODE
Iain Macdonald, Principal, Future Energy Systems Development Lead, HKS LINE
Marina Otero, Lecturer in Architecture, Harvard GSD