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AI and Sustainability at Scale: Building Trust into Next-Generation Infrastructure

Wednesday, 21 January 2026 | Davos, Switzerland During the World Economic Forum in Davos, Aleria convened a panel discussion at IHC House to examine the relationship between AI infrastructure and sustainability at institutional scale. The session brought together senior leaders from finance, energy, and carbon intelligence to discuss how sustainability must be designed into AI systems from the outset, rather than treated as a secondary consideration.

The panel featured Eric Leandri, CEO of Aleria; Benjamin Versluijs, Senior Vice President at Northern Trust; Moustafa Rashad, CEO of EHC Investment; and Esteban van Goor, CEO of Xange. The discussion was moderated by McKinsey & Company.

As AI infrastructure scales globally, sustainability is increasingly recognised as an infrastructure challenge rather than a reporting exercise. At this level, environmental performance, energy efficiency, and governance are inseparable from operational reliability and long-term value creation.

The next generation of data centres is fundamentally different from the past. Liquid cooling, complex energy systems, advanced electrical design, and specialised engineering capabilities are now baseline requirements. These facilities are capital intensive and operationally complex, with limited tolerance for inefficiency or misalignment

From an institutional perspective, the panel emphasised that sustainability must be embedded into infrastructure from the outset. Energy performance, carbon measurement, and governance frameworks are no longer peripheral considerations. They directly influence risk, efficiency, and long-term asset performance.

AI plays a critical role in enabling this shift. By applying large-scale data analysis to infrastructure operations, sustainability becomes measurable, auditable, and enforceable. Environmental performance transitions from static disclosure to active control.

The discussion reinforced a shared view that sustainable AI infrastructure depends on trust across the full value chain — from capital deployment and energy systems to governance and jurisdictional integrity. As AI continues to evolve into a foundational layer of the global economy, this trust will define which systems are viable at scale.

For Aleria, linking AI and sustainability is not an abstract objective. It is a structural requirement for building resilient, sovereign, and institutionally aligned AI infrastructure.