JOHN BELIZAIRE
THE DATA CENTRE INTERVIEW
For most of the past decade, the working assumption across the data centre industry was straightforward: secure enough GPUs and you could run AI. That assumption, according to John Belizaire, CEO of Soluna, no longer holds.“ The real constraint today is energy access,” John says.“ Grid interconnection queues in the US now stretch five to seven years in many markets. Utilities are operating at or near capacity in regions with the highest data centre demand. The permitting and buildout timelines for new transmission infrastructure are measured in decades, not years.”
The consequence is that a developer can secure the capital, the hardware and the land for a new AI data centre and still face years of delays waiting for power.
John is direct about what this means for the industry:“ The conversation has shifted from‘ Where can we build?’ to‘ Where can we get power, and fast?’ Speed to power is now the determining factor in where and how fast AI infrastructure gets built.”
It is a structural shift, not a temporary squeeze. The energy system was not designed to absorb demand at this pace, and the gap between what AI infrastructure requires and what the grid can deliver has become the defining infrastructure problem of the moment.
JOHN BELIZAIRE
TITLE: CEO COMPANY: SOLUNA INDUSTRY: DATA CENTRES
John Belizaire is the CEO of Soluna, where he leads the development of green data centres that convert excess renewable energy into computing resources.
22 May 2026