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Powering the Future 2026 Energizes Houston’s Next Economic Frontier

By CNN

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    July 23, 2026 (Houston Style Magazine) — The Houston Port Region did more than discuss the future—it switched it on. For generations, Greater Houston has met major economic shifts with engineering talent, entrepreneurial nerve and a willingness to build at Texas scale. That tradition was fully visible inside CPET.

More than 260 business, technology, construction and energy leaders filled San Jacinto College’s LyondellBasell Center for Petrochemical, Energy & Technology on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, for the Economic Alliance Houston Port Region’s “Powering the Future: Data Centers, Energy & Economic Growth.” The near-capacity gathering brought the people who generate power, construct infrastructure, finance development and train tomorrow’s workforce into one room for a timely conversation about artificial intelligence’s expanding appetite for energy.

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Speakers Economic Alliance Port Region 2026 Powering The Future

That appetite is no small matter. AI may live in “the cloud,” but the cloud has an address, a construction schedule, a workforce and a very serious electric bill. As companies invest in increasingly powerful data centers, communities must consider generation capacity, transmission, reliability, sustainability, site preparation, water usage, construction and long-term economic benefits.

Texas grid operator ERCOT’s preliminary long-term forecast projects dramatic electricity-demand growth through 2032, largely reflecting proposed large-load projects and the state’s continued economic expansion. Not every project in that pipeline will be built, but the direction is clear: Texas must begin preparing today for the digital economy’s power requirements of tomorrow.

Microsoft’s Valeria Teran, representing Energy and Sustainability, and Mansur Masood, NRG Energy’s director of data-center origination, opened the program with perspectives on the intersection of technology, data-center investment and energy infrastructure. Their discussion helped frame a central question: How can the Houston Port Region capture this next generation of investment while maintaining dependable, affordable and increasingly efficient energy systems?

Economic Alliance President and CEO Chad Burke moderated the keynote conversation with the steady hand of someone who understands that regional growth is rarely accidental. It is planned, negotiated, financed, permitted, constructed and supported through partnerships. Burke kept the discussion grounded in the Houston Port Region’s competitive advantages—industrial expertise, global connectivity, available talent and a business community accustomed to solving enormous infrastructure challenges.

The “Energy Investments for Data Center Growth” panel added even more voltage. Participants included Abhi Mandhana of Calpine’s PowerFolio team; Matt Hobson, principal at Energy Edge Consulting; Junaid Ali, CEO of Prismecs; Omar David Land, director of operations at Bartlett Cocke General Contractors; and Allen Brookey, business development and growth strategy executive at Wood.

Moderated by Industry Business Roundtable Business Director Melissa Wolkenhauer, the panel examined energy-supply solutions, project development, construction readiness, investment opportunities and the future outlook for AI infrastructure.

What made the conversation especially meaningful was its location. San Jacinto College’s CPET facility represents the practical bridge between economic ambition and workforce readiness. New data-center and energy investments cannot operate on press releases alone. They require electricians, technicians, engineers, construction professionals, cybersecurity specialists, operators and creative problem-solvers.

Hosting the discussion at San Jacinto College underscored that education and industry must move together—or risk watching opportunity move elsewhere.

For more than 35 years, the Economic Alliance Houston Port Region has worked to grow and market a vibrant regional economy through economic development, public policy, workforce development, transportation, infrastructure and quality-of-life initiatives. Its membership connects 17 communities, Port Houston, Harris County and more than 200 private-sector industries surrounding the Houston Ship Channel.

“Powering the Future” continued that legacy by expanding the regional conversation beyond the industries that built Houston’s economic strength toward the technologies that will help define its next chapter.

Presenting sponsor UBS, event sponsors Harris County Precincts 2 and 3 and Texas Technical Trade School, host sponsor San Jacinto College, participating companies and regional partners helped make the program a success. As media sponsor, Houston Style Magazine proudly amplified an event that placed collaboration—not competition for the microphone—at center stage.

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Media Sponsor Table Economic Alliance Port Region 2026 Powering The Future

Houston has never been content to simply observe the future from a safe distance. We build the port, train the workforce, engineer the solution and occasionally add a hard hat for good measure. The July 15 program showed that the Houston Port Region is prepared to transform AI’s massive power requirements into investment, employment, innovation and shared regional prosperity.

The message leaving CPET was unmistakable: when Houston’s energy intelligence meets artificial intelligence, opportunity is officially online.

To explore membership, task forces and future programs, visit AlliancePortRegion.com.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Kierra Lee
KIELEESTYLE@GMAIL.COM
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Does Trump even care if Russia helps Iran target US troops?

By CNN
(CNN) — When President Donald Trump launched the Iran war, one of his chief goals was to stop Tehran from funding proxy groups in the Middle East. Those proxy groups, he noted, were responsible for wounding and killing scores of US troops.When it comes to whether Russia is helping Iran target those Americans, though, Trump seems remarkably incurious.And that’s become a pretty familiar posture for him.The most recent example stems from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s testimony before a Senate committee last week.When asked whether China and Russia were helping Iran, Hegseth cited “ways in which both of those countries” have been “enabling some of the things Iran is doing, yes.”Two days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio ignored a question about the subject while seated across from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.Then Trump issued a social media post contradicting Hegseth. He said China and Russia were “in my opinion, not participating” in the Iran war because their leaders had assured him they weren’t selling weapons to Tehran.“I think, you know, I trust them,” Trump said later in the day, adding: “There could be some things they do. But, thus far, at least, it has not been major. I don’t think they’d want to have me disappointed.”But Russia isn’t just accused of potentially arming Iran; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Moscow has given Iran satellite imagery of US bases.When asked about this Monday, Trump again downplayed how much it mattered — saying it would have been “unimpactful” — but added, “We’ll find out if that’s true. I’ll ask (Russian President Vladimir) Putin about it.”But it’s not like this is a new story for him to suddenly broach with Putin. CNN’s first story on this dates back nearly five months, to early March, when it first reported that Russia was providing intel on US military targets to Iran, according to multiple sources familiar with US intelligence.(The New York Times has reported since then that US and European officials also believed Moscow was providing drones and drone parts to Iran, which the Kremlin denied.)The president greeted CNN’s March reporting much like the news today. He said he had “had no indication of that whatsoever” but that the results in the war’s early days suggested it didn’t matter much.“Whether or not this happened, frankly, it does not really matter,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added, “because President Trump and the United States military are absolutely decimating the rogue Iranian terrorist regime.”One of Trump’s negotiators to end the Russia-Ukraine war, Steve Witkoff, said he had “strongly” told Russia not to give Iran targeting information and other aid. But Trump never came out and said it so firmly.And even after additional US deaths at the hands of Iran this month, the subject apparently still doesn’t concern him too much.All of it sounds a lot like Trump’s first term, when there was also intelligence linking Russia to the targeting of US troops. Back then, it was Russia possibly placing bounties on those troops in Afghanistan.As of mid-2020, Trump denied he had been orally briefed on it. But CNN and others reported it had been in his daily briefing in February 2020 (which he is not known to fully read) and that the White House had received intelligence about the possibility as far back as early 2019.Trump knocked the story as possibly a “hoax” and “fake news” and, weeks after it was reported, said he had declined to bring it up during a call with Putin.“I have never discussed it with Putin,” Trump told Axios at the time. “I would, I have no problem with it.”The Trump administration emphasized that the intelligence wasn’t conclusive, and the Biden administration said by 2021 that the CIA had only “low to moderate confidence” in it. But that still leaves open the possibility. And given it involves the lives of US troops, it would seem to be something a president might be pretty interested in.Trump, though, has done what he often does — draw an apparent moral equivalency to what the US does. During his first term, he likened the possibility of Russia placing bounties on US troops to the United States aiding anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. And back in March, he said that Russia would “say we do it against them, wouldn’t they?”The problem with this posture is not just that it places the United States on similar moral ground to Russia; it’s that it sends a message to Russia that helping Iran target US troops — if that indeed is happening — isn’t a red line for Trump.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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