The AI Lab November Community Meeting: Data Centers and Your Workforce- What You Need to Know
The AI Lab Community Call: Data Centers and Your Workforce- What You Need to Know
A monthly gathering of CxOs shaping how their companies move on AI.
This is a closed-door conversation among peers, with trust at the heart of it. An honest conversation among the people actually making decisions, comparing notes on what's working, what isn't, and what they're wrestling with this month, in an ever-evolving landscape.
Who's in the room:
CEOs, presidents, and executives leading AI transformation inside their organizations. Open to The AI Lab Community Members exclusively.
What we're talking about this month: Data Centers
Seven in 10 Americans now oppose building AI data centers in their area, driven by concerns about energy costs, water use, and environmental strain (Gallup, 2026). Your employees are hearing about it, and many are asking questions.
Join experts in public policy, environmental science, and data center development for a clear-eyed look at what's actually happening around water and energy use, effects on local communities, proposed moratoriums, and the changing landscape in how these centers are constructed. The goal is to help you talk with employees openly and accurately, so they can understand the issue and establish a sense of agency on this top-of-mind issue.
What you will walk away with:
A grounded view of the current landscape, its challenges, and possible paths forward
How community benefits agreements and local policy can deliver value to residents
Practical ways to open honest conversations with your teams
What to expect:
A focused discussion, guided by an AI Lab advisor and grounded in current research, the latest releases from frontier labs, and in-the-trenches experience. Real questions from members. Candid answers from people who've made the call before. Chatham House rules.
No hype. No jargon. Just practical strategy from leaders who’ve done it before.
Guest speakers:
Kate Garman Burns served as Executive Director at MetroLab Network beginning in 2022. She brought this work to FAS, now leading the MetroLab policy team as Director. Before joining, she was a Senior Associate at Cityfi, a firm focused on fostering innovation and new thinking in the urban environment. Previously, she was a part of two mayoral administrations. Kate was the Technology Policy Advisor for Mayor Jenny Durkan in Seattle, WA. And before moving to Seattle, she was the Innovation Policy Advisor for Mayor Sly James in Kansas City, MO. These roles shared similar missions and values, including drafting new regulatory schemas for transportation networks and short term rentals, as well as implementing and promoting privacy and surveillance regulations.
She sits on several boards, including the Coleridge Initiative, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) as a principal director on behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
She has a juris doctorate from the University of Missouri Kansas City, and a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Kansas. Kate lives in Arlington, VA with her family that includes two young humans and a joyful, yet demanding dog.
https://fas.org/expert/kate-burns/
Matt Rix
Matt Rix is Senior Vice President, AI Infrastructure and Strategic Partnerships at TokenPulse, where he leads the company’s global expansion strategy: securing data center capacity, procuring GPU systems, and managing the export licensing that moves them to sites across Southeast Asia and North America.
Before TokenPulse, Rix was Sales Director, Hyperscale and Sovereign AI at DataVolt, working on turnkey, single-customer capacity deals of up to 1.5 gigawatts at the company’s AI campuses in Saudi Arabia and Central Asia.
Previously, at Equinix, he was Director of Business Development, AI and Partner Ecosystem, where he built the OEM and global systems integrator partnerships behind the company’s Private AI business and worked with NVIDIA and the major server OEMs on joint go-to-market. His time there spanned the shift from colocation and cloud interconnection to AI factories: high-density, liquid-cooled footprints built for training and inference.
Matt has also held delivery and operations leadership roles at SitusAMC, DaVita and Long View Systems, running cloud, infrastructure and services organizations for financial services, healthcare and enterprise clients. He serves on the board of Ray Analytics, a behind-the-meter power services firm.
He lives in Golden, Colorado, and is originally from Alberta, Canada. He holds a master’s degree in organizational leadership and a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and spends his time outside work mountain biking, skiing and hiking with his family.