Broadband Breakfast on September 10, 2025 – Energy and Resilient Critical Infrastructure

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Full Event Video

Energy and utilities have long been recognized as critical infrastructure. The infrastructure of the internet is increasingly intertwined with soaring energy demands and the race for AI dominance; infrastructure resilience is no longer optional. This session of Broadband Breakfast Live Online – on Wednesday, Sept. 10 – will explore the energy demands necessary to power digital infrastructure. In addition to addressing the interface between telecom and energy generation, transmission and distribution, the online event will explore the energy demands of data centers. Join us on Wednesday at 12 Noon ET to prepare for Broadband Breakfast’s in-person Resilient Critical Infrastructure Summit on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. 

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Panelists

• Chip Pickering, CEO, INCOMPAS
• Andy Berke, Former Administrator, USDA's Rural Utilities Service
• Drew Clark (moderator), CEO and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast

Chip Pickering is CEO of INCOMPAS, the internet and competitive networks association. For nearly three decades, he has been at the forefront of every major telecommunications milestone, from his time as a Senate staffer on the Commerce Committee shaping the Telecommunications Act of 1996, to his role as a Member of Congress leading on tech issues and overseeing the transition to the commercial internet.

For the last two decades, Andy Berke has led progress at the federal, state, and local levels. In 2022, he became the Administrator of the Rural Utilities Service, the largest funder of telecommunications, water, and electricity in rural America. His work led to the funding of more than $4.5 billion for new high-speed internet projects, and he utilized funding from the Inflation Reduction Act to create two new programs: Empowering Rural America (New ERA) and Powering Affordable Clean Energy (PACE). Together, these initiatives seeded $40 billion in clean energy projects across solar, wind, nuclear, hydro, geothermal, and carbon capture technologies.

Breakfast Media LLC CEO Drew Clark has led the Broadband Breakfast community since 2008. An early proponent of better broadband, better lives, he initially founded the Broadband Census crowdsourcing tool to collect and verify broadband data left unpublished by the Federal Communications Commission. As CEO and Publisher, Clark presides over the leading media community advocating for higher-capacity internet everywhere through topical, timely and intelligent coverage. Clark also served as head of the Partnership for a Connected Illinois, a state broadband initiative.