ALPS names Brian Turnbow chief AI technology officer for data centre push
Italian data centre company ALPS has appointed Brian Turnbow as its director of AI technology, tasking him with leading the firm's technical expansion into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC). According to ALPS, the strategy centres on converting energy into compute, using renewable sources and existing industrial assets.
- ALPS named Brian Turnbow as technical director for AI to lead its AI and HPC expansion.
- Terna data cited by ALPS shows Italian data centre grid connection requests above 100 GW as of 31 August 2026, versus about 30 GW at the end of 2024.
- ALPS plans to site data centres where energy already exists and to reuse disused industrial sites and their grid connections.
- Existing mining operations continue alongside the new AI and HPC activity.
- Italy is a priority market, with plans to work with Italian engineering and industrial firms.
A new role for a data centre specialist
ALPS announced the appointment of Brian Turnbow as technical director for AI. The company was founded in Trentino in 2018 and operates on four continents. It designs, builds and operates data centres integrated with energy systems, and it is now applying that experience to AI and HPC.
Turnbow will lead ALPS's technical strategy in both fields. His remit runs from evaluating architectures and sites to working with technology and industrial partners. Italy will be a priority market, according to the company.
He brings more than 25 years of experience in telecommunications and digital infrastructure, with technical roles at TWT, Unidata and CDLAN. He also sits on the board of ITNOG.
Energy access as the main constraint
ALPS frames access to power as one of the main limits on building AI infrastructure. It cites data from Terna as of 31 August 2026: grid connection requests for data centres in Italy totalled more than 100 GW, compared with roughly 30 GW recorded at the end of 2024. That growth, the company says, makes site selection and grid connection timelines critical factors.
ALPS says its answer is a deliberate choice to place data centres where energy already exists, even outside the main hubs of activity, to reduce reliance on saturated parts of the grid. The company aims to integrate renewable energy and rehabilitate disused industrial sites, reusing grid connections, buildings and other existing assets where technically feasible.
The stated goal is a more sustainable computing infrastructure that draws on local resources and, through the reuse of assets, limits land use and reduces the need for new construction.
Mining continues, Italy in focus
The AI and HPC expansion complements ALPS's existing mining operations, which the company says continue to develop in line with its business plan. ALPS plans to bring its international experience to Italy and work with Italian engineering and industrial firms, while also drawing on those firms' experience from projects abroad.
Francesco Buffa, CEO and co-founder of ALPS, said: "Italia y Europa cuentan con recursos energéticos, activos industriales y experiencia técnica que podemos aprovechar." He added that the company wants to turn the energy and industrial potential of its regions into a competitive advantage and help narrow Europe's gap in artificial intelligence.
Turnbow said that AI infrastructure begins well before GPUs are deployed. In his view, every project should start from the workloads it must support and from customer requirements, not only from available power. His aim is to turn those requirements into coherent design decisions, building flexible, scalable and sustainable computing capacity while using renewable energy and existing assets.
Backing and what it means
ALPS says its international growth has been supported by Azimut through a 40 million euro transaction in 2023 and a syndicated 105 million euro transaction in 2024.
The appointment signals that ALPS intends to move beyond its current activities into AI and HPC, with power availability as the starting point for site decisions. How far the approach succeeds will depend on projects the company has yet to announce, as the source gives no capacity targets, sites or timelines.
