When: Friday, April 24th 2026, 10:15 am - 11:15 am EDT
Location: Troy Building, Room 2012, Troy, New York, United States
Dr. Peter De Bock is currently Vice President, Data Center Energy and Liquid Cooling Technology at Eaton, where he is responsible for shaping strategy, innovation, and customer engagement across one of the fastest-growing and most critical segments of the global digital infrastructure market. With deep expertise in mission-critical power, electrical infrastructure, and data center ecosystems, Peter works at the intersection of technology, energy, and industrial systems—partnering with hyperscalers, colocation providers, utilities, and technology firms worldwide to address challenges of scale, resilience, sustainability, and performance.What distinguishes Peter’s leadership is his ability to connect engineering fundamentals, system-level design, and real-world operational demands. His perspective bridges industry execution and future-focused innovation, making his insights especially relevant for an academic and research-driven audience like RPI.In this discussion, Peter will challenge you to rethink data centers—not simply as facilities that support IT, but as the foundational industrial platforms of the digital economy, driving a new era of industrial transformation. Peter will be speaking about the unprecedented growth driven by AI, cloud computing, and electrification—but alongside that growth come real challenges: power availability, energy efficiency, cooling at extreme densities, system resilience, and the need for new ways of engineering at scale.Addressing these challenges requires more than incremental improvements. It demands system-level thinking, advanced modeling and simulation, new cooling and power architectures, and—most importantly—strong collaboration between industry and academia.*Eaton Corporation is a member of the RPI Industry Engagement Program & current RPI Center for Career and Professional Development Employer Sponsor!Registration closes on April 22nd. Refreshments will be served - You won't want to miss this!
