ALPS, a company operating on four continents and specialising in the development, construction, and operation of data centres with integrated energy systems, is strengthening its leadership team. Brian Turnbow has been appointed Technical Director for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC). His responsibilities include leading ALPS' technical strategy in this segment, evaluating architectures and locations, and collaborating with technology and industry partners.
The development of AI infrastructure is significantly limited by access to energy. Current data from Italy illustrates this: requests for data centre grid connections totalled over 100 GW by 31 August 2026, compared to approximately 30 GW at the end of 2024, according to Terna. This significant increase underscores the necessity of strategic site selection and the importance of lead times for grid connections.
Strategy and Sustainability of Site Selection
ALPS pursues an energy-to-compute approach that necessitates deliberate site selection. Data centres are primarily to be located where sufficient energy resources are already available. This explicitly includes areas outside major transport hubs to reduce dependency on overloaded sections of the power grid. The company intends to integrate renewable energy sources and redevelop disused industrial sites.
- —Reusing existing grid connections.
- —Utilising existing buildings and facilities where technically feasible.
- —Limiting land consumption through reuse.
- —Reducing the need for new builds.
The aim of this strategy is to create a more sustainable computing infrastructure by utilising local resources. This expansion of business activities complements ALPS' existing mining operations, which will continue as part of the business model.
Focus on Italy and European Potential
Italy will be a priority market for ALPS. The company plans to bring its international expertise to the country and collaborate with local engineering and industrial companies, also leveraging their expertise acquired abroad. Francesco Buffa, CEO and co-founder of ALPS, stated that Italy and Europe possess energy resources, industrial facilities, and technical know-how that could be utilised. He emphasised the goal of transforming the energy and industrial potential of the regions of operation into a competitive advantage and contributing to reducing Europe's AI gap.
Brian Turnbow brings over 25 years of experience in telecommunications and digital infrastructure, including technical leadership positions at TWT, Unidata, and CDLAN. He is also a board member of ITNOG. Turnbow highlighted that AI infrastructure begins long before the deployment of GPUs. He stressed that every project must start with the workloads to be managed and customer requirements, not exclusively with the available power. His goal is to translate these requirements into coherent design decisions, thereby building flexible, scalable, and sustainable computing capacities using renewable energy sources and existing facilities.
