ALPS has appointed Brian Turnbow as technical director for AI, the company announced on 15 October 2026. He will run ALPS's technical strategy for AI and high-performance computing (HPC), from assessing architectures and sites to talks with technology and industrial partners.

ALPS was founded in Trentino in 2018 and operates on four continents. It designs, builds and runs data centers that are tied into energy systems.

Grid requests passed 100 GW

Access to electricity is one of the main constraints on AI infrastructure. Terna data as of 31 August 2026 show data center grid connection requests in Italy above 100 GW in total, against about 30 GW at the end of 2024.

Energy-to-compute: build where the power is

ALPS calls its approach energy-to-compute. The company will place data centers where power is already available, including outside the main hubs, to depend less on congested parts of the grid. It plans to add renewable generation and redevelop disused industrial sites, reusing grid connections, buildings and other assets where that is technically possible. ALPS says reuse limits land consumption and cuts the need for new construction.

Italy will be a priority market. ALPS wants to bring its international experience back home and work with Italian engineering and industrial firms. The AI push sits alongside the mining activity ALPS already runs, which continues under the company's plan.

Who Turnbow is

Turnbow has more than 25 years in telecoms and digital infrastructure and has held technical roles at TWT, Unidata and CDLAN. He sits on the board of ITNOG.

He said AI infrastructure work starts well before GPUs are installed, and that each project should begin with the workloads and customer needs, not only available power.

ALPS CEO and co-founder Francesco Buffa said Italy and Europe have energy resources, industrial infrastructure and technical skills to draw on. He said the approach should help narrow Europe's AI gap.

Azimut backed ALPS's international growth with a 40 million euro deal in 2023 and a 105 million euro club deal in 2024.