HATEM ATTIA
DCI
“ My entire career has been in the building industry and I’ ve been fortunate to have worked on projects in most of its sectors,” he reflects.“ I started out early in my career as a contractor and then I moved into consultancy. I joined my former company, Aurecon, about 9 years ago, and I picked up a data centre project – data centres weren’ t really fashionable at the time. When I got into the weeds of it, I found that it was more complex than anything else I’ d been doing.”
That complexity is compound. Beyond the immediate mechanical and electrical challenges, data centre designers now operate under intense public scrutiny, navigating strict environmental expectations and social licensing.
“ Social licensing is becoming a very important topic and part of the decisions that we make on a daily basis are to ensure our designs are sustainable enough,” Hatem explains.“ We are careful to minimise our impact on the environment as much as possible.”
Yet, despite the pressure, the sector offers an engineering velocity rarely found in traditional construction.
“ The gap between the decision and build outcome is fairly short,” Hatem says.“ In most infrastructure projects, you can take an engineering call, and you can see it commissioned after many years, but data centres are completely different. I could size a system today and see it energised and operating 18 to 24 months later. This means you see the results of your decisions much sooner, which, as an engineer, I find very intriguing.
HATEM ATTIA
DIRECTOR OF ENGINEERING
Hatem is Director of Engineering at DCI Data Centers, where he drives global engineering strategy, standards and governance. He leads the development of DCI’ s design and engineering function with a strong focus on innovation and new technologies adaptation. Working across international markets, he connects strategy with delivery and operation, turning complex requirements into clear, buildable and scalable infrastructure outcomes.
“ The second thing is just the breadth and the pace of technology. It’ s moving very, very quickly and the compute reinvents itself every couple of years. The buildings have to keep up no matter what. That tension is where it’ s really interesting for me because it sits between the engineering and the practicalities of construction, commissioning and operation.”
Engineering on the bleeding edge This relentless technological evolution means engineering formulas can expire almost as fast as they are written. The explosion of AI and highdensity compute has forced engineers to abandon legacy playbooks.
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