Data Centers
With Virginia Tech, tomorrow’s data center ecosystem takes shape
Faculty-led virtual roundtable series
Beginning this fall, Virginia Tech will host focused virtual roundtables that bring leaders together for deeper technical exchange around emerging challenges and opportunities.
Institute for Advanced Computing
Workload-Aware Infrastructure | October 6 | Registration forthcoming
How should organizations design computing systems and facilities around the work they need to perform, while preserving flexibility as workloads and technologies change? (Facilitated by Kirk Cameron, Managing Director, Institute for Advanced Computing, Virginia Tech)
Alliance for AI Governance & Security hosted by the Virginia Tech National Security Institute
The New AI Security Landscape | September 15
Panelists: George Barnes (Red Cell Partners), Anna Rubenstein (Anduril), Marina Theodotou (Center for Frontier AI Security)
AI Trust and Competitiveness | September 29
AI for Decision Advantage | October 13
Panelists: Adam Hayes (OvermatchAI), Richard Paul Unger (German Army Training Command), Natalie Perez (Univ. of Hawaii)
Data center summit explores the complexities in powering the digital ecosystem
02:02
Collaboration as Competitive Edge
Virginia Tech is stepping in to help answer mission-critical questions surrounding the booming digital economy. Positioned as a bridge between research and deployment, we’re working on solutions for both the utilities supplying power and the operators managing compute demand as they model long-term scenarios at scale. Our recent Data Center Summit brought together leaders from industry, academia, and government to begin shaping the data center ecosystem of the future.
Integrating Every Side of Innovation
The Build
How data centers get designed, built, and deployed
Modern data centers require infrastructure that can evolve with and react to fluctuating workloads, but such complexity can stress choices like location and construction models. When efficiency and economics don’t immediately align, it takes system-level coordination to create enabling environments for high performance. To advance a better built environment, we’re bringing together owners, builders, and technology providers to accelerate delivery while leveraging digital tools, automation, and modular approaches to construction.
The Power
Developing a reliable energy mix at scale
Data centers must be reliable — and so must their power source. We’re developing better tools to coordinate data centers both on and off the grid, while also tackling grid capacity and interconnection challenges, important advances across our ever-more electrified society. And as nuclear energy re-emerges as a potential solution for dependable, on-site, low-carbon baseload power, Virginia Tech and partner SURA will guide Jefferson Lab in Newport News, one of the nation’s leading nuclear physics research laboratories.
The Resources
Maximizing efficiency to minimize our footprint
Companies need practical solutions to reduce energy and water consumption across data center operations. At Virginia Tech, we’re exploring how energy-efficient AI chips, different cooling measures, better algorithms, and even artificial intelligence itself can optimize performance responsibly. And by aligning utilities, industry, and government in prioritizing low-impact industrial processes at scale, we can help communities manage vital resources now and in the future.
The Compute
Maximizing efficiency to minimize our footprint
Compute is becoming more specialized, more dense, and more demanding of the infrastructure that supports it. To optimize data-intensive workloads, Virginia Tech researchers are investigating alternatives to power-hungry large language models and validating how AI-enabled chips can improve data center design and performance. Bolstered by the new Institute for Advanced Computing, we’re championing strategic, scalable innovation by regularly convening leaders across the artificial intelligence ecosystem to tackle the issues that matter most.
The Trust
Maximizing efficiency to minimize our footprint
Growing demand can strain an otherwise reliable system. Our researchers are defending against cyber and physical threats and strengthening risk management at scale by prioritizing resiliency from the start. And to avoid data center bottlenecks, we’re targeting storage inefficiencies and reimagining how algorithms search for information.
The Talent
Maximizing efficiency to minimize our footprint
Data centers need talent that can contribute on day one and lead as the industry evolves. With our university’s emphasis on project-based learning and service, we work hand in hand with companies to solve real-life problems that require teamwork across disciplines. As part of a $1 billion investment by the commonwealth, Virginia Tech is working to double the tech talent pipeline in Virginia.
Imagine the
possibilities
with Virginia Tech
- Test and prove new technologies faster through living labs
- Turn permitting and policy from a barrier into a shared solution
- Stay ahead of threats with built-in, forward-looking security and resilience strategies
- Lower operating costs and improve performance by optimizing energy, cooling, and resource use from the start
- Access a ready pipeline of skilled talent trained on real-world data center challenges
- Reduce build time, cost overruns, and risk with smarter, more repeatable construction and deployment models
See more angles we’re exploring
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Researchers see potential benefits, astronomical challenges for orbital data centers , articleWhile operating data centers in low earth orbit could alleviate some of the issues they create on Earth, doing so also introduces a host of new challenges and costs.
Date: 06/03/2026 - -
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Reducing power consumption, protecting data through algorithms , articleUsing better algorithms, Gretchen Matthews and her colleagues are focused on reducing energy load and protecting data centers from catastrophic loss.
Date: 05/06/2026 - -
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Power supply or grid stress? Both need to be solved to meet data center demand , articleSmall modular reactors, or on-site power plants, could allow data center companies to supply their own power right where it’s needed, without impacting residential and commercial energy delivery and putting extra strain on the grid.
Date: 05/04/2026 -
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Gwen Harrington Director of Strategic Engagement
You’re changing the world. So are we.
Let’s do it together.
As data demands accelerate, innovation in power, design, construction, and computing is increasingly critical to improving efficiency, sustainability, and global competitiveness at scale.
With Virginia Tech, you can help shape the future of data center infrastructure while leveraging the strengths of a tier 1 research university dedicated to service.