Soluna Hires Microsoft Data Center Executive Ryan Carver to Lead AI Buildout

Soluna (NASDAQ: SLNH) Holdings has appointed former Microsoft data center construction executive Ryan Carver as chief development officer, adding hyperscale development experience as the bitcoin mining operator advances two planned artificial intelligence and high-performance computing campuses in Texas.

Carver will oversee the full development lifecycle of Soluna’s AI and HPC platform, including site origination, power procurement, design, construction, commissioning and operations. The appointment took effect immediately, and Carver will report to Chief Executive Officer John Belizaire and join the company’s senior leadership team.

The role places development, construction, power and technology operations under a single executive as Soluna tries to move its AI strategy from site planning and power procurement into tenant contracting and physical delivery.

Carver joins Soluna after more than a decade at Microsoft, where he most recently served as senior director for AI construction and site development. Soluna said he managed a construction portfolio worth tens of billions of dollars and led the construction program for Microsoft’s Fairwater data center campus in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin.

His earlier Microsoft roles covered site selection, permitting, design and project delivery across multiple markets. Before joining Microsoft, Carver worked in engineering and project management roles at Turner Construction and Jacobs, contributing to projects including World Trade Center Tower 2 and Yankee Stadium.

The appointment comes as Soluna advances Project Kati 2 and Project Dorothy 3, two renewable-powered campuses that would represent its largest move beyond bitcoin infrastructure.

Project Kati 2 is planned as a more than 350-megawatt AI and HPC hosting campus in Willacy County, Texas. Soluna said this week that it has selected a general contractor, completed about half of the project’s detailed design work and signed a letter of intent with a potential tenant that has entered formal commercial negotiations. The company has also signed preliminary agreements with suppliers for long-lead electrical equipment.

Project Dorothy 3 is planned as another AI and HPC campus with more than 300 MW of potential capacity next to Soluna’s existing Dorothy bitcoin facilities and the Briscoe Wind Farm in West Texas. Environmental reviews, fiber studies, surveying and master planning remain underway.

Soluna acquired the 150 MW Briscoe wind facility for $53 million in April, giving the company ownership of the generation asset, land and computing infrastructure at the Dorothy campus. The company has positioned that structure as a way to reduce its dependence on utility interconnection timelines and third-party power contracts as it develops AI capacity.

Both planned AI campuses remain under development, however. Soluna’s currently operating facilities are still primarily used for bitcoin hosting and proprietary mining, meaning Carver’s appointment comes before the company has delivered a large-scale commercial AI data center.

The company’s decision to recruit directly from Microsoft reflects a wider hiring shift among publicly traded bitcoin miners and energy-backed data center developers. As companies seek to convert power portfolios into AI infrastructure, they have increasingly hired executives with experience at hyperscalers, cloud platforms and established data center operators.

IREN has made three such appointments this month. On July 2, the company named former Oracle Cloud Infrastructure executive Kambiz Aghili as chief product officer and Michael Nudelman as chief development officer. Nudelman, who previously held roles at Google, CyrusOne and Beale Infrastructure, was tasked with expanding IREN’s grid-connected development portfolio.

IREN followed those appointments on July 15 by hiring Eric Hammersley as chief information security officer. Hammersley joined from Nutanix and previously led security architecture work for Nvidia’s HPC environments, highlighting the operational and cybersecurity capabilities required as bitcoin infrastructure companies begin serving enterprise and hyperscale customers.

Keel Infrastructure (NASDAQ: KEEL), formerly Bitfarms, appointed Ganesh Aiyer as president on July 6 to lead commercial development and pipeline expansion. Aiyer previously served as chief business officer at Digital Realty, where he oversaw global commercial strategy for hyperscale, cloud and enterprise customers.

Ionic Digital has made similar additions during its transition from bitcoin mining toward digital infrastructure leasing. Its regulatory filings show that the company appointed data center adviser Antonio Piraino as chief strategy officer in February and former Digital Realty executive Mark Lambourne as chief development officer in March.

The trend has also reached company boards. Galaxy Digital appointed former Xerox CEO Steven Bandrowczak as an independent director on July 13, citing his background in enterprise technology, data center consolidation and AI adoption as Galaxy expands its Helios campus for AI workloads.

The common thread is a shift from securing land and electricity to proving that companies can design, finance, construct and operate data centers that meet hyperscaler standards. AI campuses require more complex cooling, redundancy, security and customer-support systems than conventional bitcoin mining sites, while their development also carries greater construction costs and longer delivery schedules.