Building the Future of Urban Sustainability: Insights from the Data Center Industry Conference

As digital transformation accelerates across sectors, the demand for robust, scalable, and

energy-efficient IT infrastructure has never been greater. This reality was front and center at

the recent Data Center Industry Conference in Ljubljana, where experts from across Europe

gathered to explore the latest trends in data center design, energy optimization, AI

integration, and cybersecurity. You can find out more information about the conference following this link.

ITC – Innovation Technology Cluster attended this event, gaining firsthand insight into cutting-edge technologies like liquid cooling, hybrid data center architectures, and real-time infrastructure monitoring. These innovations are not just relevant for enterprise data centers—they are essential enablers for projects like DS2 (DataSpace, DataShare 2.0), funded under the European Commission's digital agenda.

One of the DS2 pilot initiatives, the Green Deal use case, is being implemented in the city of

Murska Sobota under the umbrella of DIH AGRIFOOD. Its goal is to use smart data integration, AI tools, and cross-sectoral collaboration to improve urban air quality and public awareness. Sensors distributed throughout the city, combined with agricultural, energy, and traffic data shared via a federated data space, allow researchers and policymakers to model pollution patterns and issue timely warnings to schools, kindergartens, and other public institutions.

What ties this together with the conference? It’s the infrastructure layer, a foundation that

enables real-time data processing, high-throughput analytics, and secure data sharing.

Lessons learned from data center design—such as efficient cooling, modular expansion, and

hybrid cloud integration—are foundational to the digital backbone needed for smart cities and data-driven environmental governance.

The Green Deal use case in DS2 illustrates how sustainably designed data ecosystems can

turn raw sensor inputs into meaningful action. From reducing air pollution emissions to

informing urban planning, the synergy between modern data center practices and next-

generation data spaces is clear. The conference reaffirmed that the future of sustainability lies not only in environmental action but in the intelligent orchestration of digital infrastructure

that supports it.

By applying the insights gained at the conference to our ongoing work in the DS2 project,

ITC is committed to transforming innovation into impact—building not just better data

centers, but smarter, cleaner, and more resilient communities.