Jackson Walker partner Meghan E. Griffiths, Co-Chair of the firm’s Digital Infrastructure & Data Centers practice, led a keynote panel titled “Texas at the Helm of America’s AI Dominance” at the Datacloud USA Conference on September 3, 2026, in Austin, Texas.

The panel brought together leaders from across the legal, legislative, grid operations, and digital infrastructure sectors to explore how Texas is uniquely positioned to power the nation’s rapidly expanding AI economy. Meghan was joined by:

• Senator Paul Bettencourt, Texas State Senate (District 7), who brings more than 25 years of leadership in fiscal responsibility and property tax reform in the Texas Legislature;
• Venkat Tirupati, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), where he oversees grid transformation, technology innovation, and strategic collaboration with external stakeholders to manage Texas’s rapidly evolving electric power grid;
• Alex Hernandez, Founder and CEO of PowerBridge LLC, a developer of gigawatt-scale powered data center campuses backed by a $1 billion equity commitment from Five Point Infrastructure. Prior to founding PowerBridge, Hernandez served as Founder and CEO of Cumulus Data—which developed the first hyperscale data center platform directly connected to carbon-free nuclear power at Talen Energy’s 2.6 GW Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant—and as CEO of Talen Energy Corp, one of North America’s largest competitive power companies; and
• Santiago Suinaga, Senior Vice President, Cloud & Hyperscale at Stream Data Centers, a seasoned C-level executive with more than 20 years of global leadership experience in the data center and digital infrastructure industry across more than 10 countries.

Together, the panelists offered a range of perspectives on Texas’s central role in powering the nation’s AI-driven future. The discussion addressed the opportunities and challenges facing the state as demand for AI, cloud computing, and data center capacity accelerates, including electric grid reliability, large-scale power development, infrastructure investment, and the policy environment needed to sustain growth in digital infrastructure.

Datacloud USA convenes executives, investors, operators, and advisors across the data center, cloud, edge, and IT infrastructure industries. The 2026 Austin conference spotlighted Texas’s emergence as a strategic hub for powered land, fiber connectivity, energy resources, and capital deployment supporting next-generation digital infrastructure.

Meet Meghan

Meghan E. Griffiths is Chair of Jackson Walker’s Environmental, Regulatory, & Legislative group and Co-Chair of the firm’s Digital Infrastructure & Data Centers practice. She advises and advocates for clients in complex project development, commercial transactions, litigation, and regulatory matters, with a primary focus on the energy and electric power sectors and companies with significant energy and infrastructure needs. Her clients include developers and owners of renewable and thermal generation, electric utilities, utility investors, retail electric providers, and large power users, including data centers, manufacturers, refineries, oil and gas companies, and commercial developers.