AI Data Center Growth Is About More Than Chips | Lisa Martin on Schwab Network
AI data center growth is becoming a story about the physical infrastructure needed to support artificial intelligence—from power and cooling to storage and networking.
In her October 8, 2026, appearance on Schwab Network’s The Watch List, Lisa Martin joined host Nicole Petallides and fellow analyst Ron Westfall of HyperFRAME Research to discuss the expanding AI infrastructure ecosystem and its implications for businesses and investors.
Lisa’s central point: understanding the next phase of AI requires looking beyond the GPU race.
The physical constraints shaping AI data center growth
Lisa described the data center buildout as an increasingly large industrial infrastructure undertaking. As AI campuses expand, access to capital and demand for computing are only part of the equation.
Power availability, grid connections, water, and community acceptance also influence how quickly projects can move forward. That broadens the conversation about AI investment to include the systems and resources that make deployment possible.
For business leaders, the implication is practical: AI ambitions depend on infrastructure that can support them.
AMD’s opportunity in an expanding market
Lisa framed AMD’s opportunity around the growth of the overall market, rather than treating its prospects solely as a contest to displace NVIDIA.
Her analysis also highlighted the importance of efficiency. As AI deployments scale, customers have to consider how much useful computing they can obtain from each watt of power and each rack of equipment.
That brings infrastructure economics into the discussion alongside chip performance.
Why storage deserves more attention
Lisa pointed to Western Digital while discussing a potentially underappreciated part of the AI ecosystem: data storage.
As organizations expand their use of inference and AI agents, Lisa sees the potential for a reinforcing cycle of data creation and use. New information accumulates, while historical enterprise data may gain renewed value as businesses find additional ways to apply it.
The resulting question extends beyond how much computing an organization needs to where its data will live and how that infrastructure will support its use.
Agentic AI brings the discussion into everyday business
Lisa connected these infrastructure developments to the decisions companies face as they adopt AI agents: which workloads should be automated, and which should use AI to augment people?
The broader panel also explored the security, visibility, and interoperability needed to support enterprise adoption.
The discussion makes a useful connection between AI strategy and execution. Putting agents to work involves decisions about people, workflows, data, and the infrastructure behind them.
Watch the full conversation above for Lisa’s perspective on AI data centers, AMD, storage, and the expanding role of agentic AI.
Originally aired on Schwab Network’s The Watch List on October 8, 2026.
Explore more of Lisa’s media appearances for analysis of AI, enterprise technology, and what these developments mean for business leaders.
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