Datacloud USA Wednesday: AWS, OpenAI, CoreWeave On Stage

Wednesday, September 2, 2026, Austin Marriott Downtown. The official Datacloud USA agenda puts Avinash Shekhar, AWS Global Head of Worldwide Energy, and Benjamin Schultz, OpenAI Member of Technical Staff for Data Center Delivery & Operations, on the Level 5 stage at 10:00–10:20 CT. As of late morning Central Time, Ultrathink found no public transcript and no official press quotes from the floor. Session titles below are from the live agenda. They are not quotes.

This is the live-day wire. The August 31 preview covered the week opening. Today is the Wednesday program as Datacloud published it: power next to compute, on one stage, then on parallel floors.

What the official clock listed this morning

All times CT, Datacloud USA stage, Level 5, as listed on the 2026 agenda and the matching session pages. Those pages returned HTTP 200 at filing.

• 09:00–09:10 — Opening remarks, techoraco.
• 09:10–09:30 — Conference chair welcome: Andrew Lipman, Partner, Morgan Lewis.
• 09:30–10:00 — Keynote fireside: Jonathan Mauck, Senior Managing Director, Digital Bridge Holdings LLC. Chair: Saf Malik, Deputy Editor, Capacity. Official copy calls it “a opening keynote fireside from one of the leaders shaping the future of digital infrastructure.”
• 10:00–10:20 — Keynote fireside: “AI Data Center At Scale – Accelerating the speed to intelligence and more.” Speakers: Avinash Shekhar (AWS) and Benjamin Schultz (OpenAI). Chair: Susanna Kass.
• 10:20–11:00 — Keynote panel: “Flexible, Reliable, Scalable – Building and operating future-proofed AI-ready data centers.” Sachin Jain, COO, Coreweave, Inc.; Piotr Tomasik, Co-Founder & President, TensorWave; Mike Parks, CEO, MCIM; Ganesh Aiyer, President, Keel Infrastructure. Chair: CB Velayuthan, PwC.

The organizer’s LinkedIn notice for the AWS–OpenAI slot (HTTP 200) dates it Wednesday, September 2, 10:00 AM CT, and frames the talk as speed to intelligence and energy strategy. That is promo copy posted before the session, not a floor quote.

The power thread, as the agenda writes it

At 11:00–11:40 CT the same stage lists “Behind-the-meter and on-time - The BYOP playbook for 2026.” Chair: Mark Brasher, Vinson & Elkins. Speakers as published: Sean James, Distinguished Engineer, Energy Systems, NVIDIA; Colin McLean, CRO, Digital Realty; Risto Paldanius, VP Energy Americas, Wärtsilä Energy, NA; David Bell, VP of Data Center & MicroGrid Development, Voltagrid LLC; Emilio Vicens, CEO, Gray Oak Power Management LLC.

The official session page, not a speaker, states the constraint: access to power and grid connections. It cites initiatives backed by PJM states and the Data Center Coalition that “incentivize obtaining generating capacity, in exchange for expedited interconnection,” and asks what still sits in equipment backlogs. Treat that as agenda language.

Two other Wednesday rooms

Metro Connect Fall, also Level 5, lists a 10:20–11:10 keynote: “Are today's networks fit for an inference-led world?” Official briefing: AI moving past training LLMs in gigawatt-scale data centres toward inference, and whether existing fiber can take the load. Speakers as published: Dan Davis, CEO, Arcadian Infracom; Dave Schaeffer, Founder & CEO, Cogent Communications; Maneesh Gauba, Oracle; Kiersten Hileman, Available Infrastructure. Chair: Adrian Sullesta, FTI Consulting. The same agenda notes the opening Datacloud USA keynotes are livestreamed into the other rooms.

The Investment and Finance Summit, Level 4, is pass-gated. Wednesday 14:00–14:30 lists Josh Pang, Head of Digital Infrastructure AIF, Apollo Global Management, on “Strategies for AI infrastructure investment.” Earlier that hour: Bora Goekbora, BCG, “State of the market address.” Later panels list Goldman Sachs, GIP, Hut8, Grain Management, and Generate Capital. Those names are from the live agenda. They are not confirmed remarks.

Datacloud Energy’s Wednesday afternoon, still scheduled at this writing, puts Todd Hillman of MISO on an 11:40 panel mapping long-term data-center power demand, then a 15:15 supply-chain panel that includes Shawn Smith of Lambda and Jason Altobelli of Google.

What is not today’s story

The ERCOT and Texas keynote — Venkat Tirupati, VP and CTO, ERCOT; Senator Paul Bettencourt; PowerBridge; Stream Data Centers — is on the official agenda for Thursday, September 3, 09:50–10:30. That session page already publishes the organizer’s demand framing: ERCOT peak summer demand “could approach 145GW by 2031, up from 85GW in 2024,” with over half projected from data centers. That is Thursday’s briefing text, not a Wednesday quote.

Nancy Novak’s Compass Datacenters keynote and the nuclear-for-AI Energy-stage panel are also Thursday. Homepage speaker tiles are not proof those people spoke today.

Method

Ultrathink checked the official site, the Wednesday agenda, and the individual session pages listed below. All returned HTTP 200. No company press room, no livestream transcript, and no official recap with attributed remarks was live at filing. If a transcript posts later, the quotes belong in a follow. Until then, the story is the program as published: AWS energy and OpenAI data-center ops sharing 20 minutes, CoreWeave and the neocloud operators next, BYOP after that, capital on Level 4 in the afternoon.

Sources: Datacloud USA official site and 2026 agenda; official Wednesday session pages for the AWS/OpenAI fireside, CoreWeave panel, BYOP panel, Metro Connect inference panel, and Apollo investment keynote; Datacloud / Broad Group LinkedIn session notice; Thursday ERCOT session page for the 145GW line. Homepage attendance claims are organizer-stated and were covered in the August 31 preview.