Powering Progress

As AI infrastructure investment accelerates, developers, investors, and operators are making long-term decisions based on assumptions about power, financing, and regulation and taxes; but one of those assumptions is changing. For years, states competed aggressively to attract data center investment through generous tax incentives. Today, however, several states are reevaluating those programs, introducing new taxes, pausing incentive offerings, or reconsidering policies that many investors once viewed as stable. So what happens when today's assumptions no longer hold? In this episode, Vinson & Elkins' Chief Innovation Officer Aubrey Bishai is joined by Co-Head of Tax Controversy Kathy Pakenham, to discuss the rapidly evolving tax incentive landscape for data centers. Together they explore why tax certainty has become a strategic issue, how recent developments are affecting project economics, and what owners, developers, and investors should be thinking about as they evaluate opportunities across different jurisdictions.

Much of the conversation around AI infrastructure has focused on growth, new data centers, unprecedented capital investment, rising power demand, and the race to build capacity fast enough to keep up. But every major infrastructure boom eventually enters a different phase. Projects become operational, markets evolve, technologies advance, regulations change, and the contracts that looked straightforward during periods of rapid expansion are put to the test. So what happens when today's assumptions no longer hold? In this episode, Vinson & Elkins' Chief Innovation Officer Aubrey Bishai is joined by International Dispute Resolution & Arbitration Partner James Barratt, who advises clients on complex cross-border disputes involving major infrastructure projects and long-term commercial arrangements. James has been at the forefront in identifying where disputes are likely to arise in the operation phase of the AI build-out. Together they discuss the next phase of the AI infrastructure story, where disputes may emerge, the lessons other industries can offer, and what companies should be doing now to build more resilient agreements in the future.

As AI and data center development continue to accelerate, much of the conversation has focused on power, infrastructure, financing, and scale, but behind every major technological shift is another critical issue that organizations increasingly have to navigate. Innovation governance is the framework we use at Vinson & Elkins to help companies identify, protect, manage, and ultimately maximize the value of their intellectual property, data, technology, and proprietary systems, including protecting against claims from other rights holders. And in today's environment, that challenge is becoming more complex and more important than ever. Modern data centers are no longer just physical infrastructure assets. They sit at the intersection of software, hardware, AI models, cooling technologies, chip architecture, operational processes, and proprietary engineering. As companies race to innovate, collaborate, and scale, the risks surrounding intellectual property ownership, protection, licensing, and competitive advantage are evolving just as quickly. In this episode, Vinson & Elkins' Chief Innovation Officer Aubrey Bishai is joined by Hilary Preston, Partner and Co-Head of Intellectual Property & Technology Litigation, to discuss how companies should think about intellectual property risks and opportunities in the rapidly expanding AI and data center ecosystem. They explore why innovation governance matters, where organizations may be most exposed, and how collaboration and partnerships can create new complexities around ownership and confidentiality, and why protecting innovation is increasingly becoming a core business and infrastructure strategy, not just a legal consideration.

As AI adoption accelerates and data center development expands across the country the conversation around infrastructure increasingly comes back to one central issue: power, but access to power is not simply an engineering or development challenge, its also deeply tied to the regulatory framework that govern wholesale electricity markets, transmission systems, energy trading, reliability requirements, and market operations. The scale and speed of projected data center growth are creating new pressures across the energy ecosystem, raising important questions about how existing regulatory structures will adapt to rapidly evolving demand. In this episode, Vinson & Elkins' Chief Innovation Officer Aubrey Bishai is joined by Energy Regulation Partner C.J. Polito to discuss the federal regulatory landscape surrounding energy markets and what it means for companies developing, financing, and operating AI-driven infrastructure They explore how regulators are thinking about reliability, market design, power transactions, interconnection challenges, and wholesale energy markets as demand from data centers continues to grow. They also discuss how developers, investors, and infrastructure companies should think about regulatory risk, compliance, and long-term market dynamic as the conversions of AI, energy, and infrastructure continues to reshape the industry.