NYCW 2026: AI Data Center Roundtable — SkimNews
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- New York Climate Week 2026 will host an AI Data Center Roundtable on September 24, 2026, from 10:00 to 12:00 at Fordham University's Lincoln Center Campus, pairing frontline community organizers with policy advocates in a single strategy session.
- Matthew Scherer of the Open Markets Institute will argue that the AI bubble could burst and take the broader economy with it.
- Public Citizen's Clara Vondrich and J.B. Branch will lay out federal principles for data centers and AI governance.
- Abre' Conner of the NAACP will address how communities are actively stopping data centers on the ground.
- Ashlee Thomas of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project will detail how private equity financing is fueling data center expansion.
- Holly Alpine of Embedded Emissions will frame Big Tech as "Big Oil's #1 Accomplice" in emissions terms, while Danielle Fugere of As You Sow and Saul Levin of the Hum podcast round out the lineup on investor dilemmas and data centers' implications for democracy.
Why it matters: The roundtable pairs an economist warning of an AI bubble crash with NAACP community organizers and a private equity critic on a single stage — an unusual cross-movement alignment. Holding the session at Fordham during NYC Climate Week places the anti-data-center case directly in front of the climate policy audience drafting guardrails for 2026 and beyond.
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