New 'Data Center Excellence' Standard From Telecom Trade Group
In the AI race with China, data centers need quality standards for a streamlined process, the trade groups said.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5, 2026 – The Telecommunications Industry Association is creating a new “Data Center Excellence” quality standard, backed by hyperscalers including Google, focused on driving critical technology and infrastructure, TIA CEO David Stehlin, said here Thursday.
TIA’s most recent work has been centered around setting minimum quality requirements for key data center components, especially with the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers, Stehlin said at the INCOMPAS Policy Summit.
“In my day, it was the Cold War. It was mutually assured destruction, if you remember that term, with thousands of nuclear weapons being built up around the world,” said INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering.
Pickering continued: “We’ve got a new war going on behind the scenes. Sun Tzu, the great Chinese philosopher, says, ‘Win the war before a bullet is fired.’ In essence, that’s one of the things we’re facing now with AI.”
Stehlin told Pickering at the INCOMPAS Policy Summit about the importance of technical industry and quality standards in providing for data center infrastructure from the beginning.
Stehlin said that’s been a big change in TIA’s work, which started as an information technology company, but has since shifted to focusing just as much on operational technology.
“A big part of what the government needs to do is get the rocks out of the field, make it easier to plow this forward — and permitting is obviously a big part of that,” Stehlin said.
“We have to be careful as to where data centers are positioned, and we have to make sure that from a permitting perspective and a grid perspective, we’re providing enough energy and electricity,” he said.
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