I would tell you I’m very humbled by it, but also surprised. I’ve always viewed myself as a grinder who just goes out and does what needs to be done to help our customers and move the industry forward. It’s humbling, and it’s a great acknowledgement of the effort, but overall, it was a surprise- that’s for sure.

Speed to power and speed to create interconnections is a big trend we are seeing in the industry right now. Everyone needs high-demand, high-quality power.

But, when you’re a data centre, you’re selling kilowatts of compute – and if you can’t get power to expand your business, that’s not a viable model.

It’s a mad rush to get interconnected to the grid or secure power – whether that’s from wind, solar, battery, renewables, natural gas, nuclear, or SMRs. However, we certainly don’t want a long bridge period. We see ourselves as a flexible bridge that helps you get connected to the utility faster. The greenest and cheapest electricity will always be grid electricity, and we aim to shorten the queue for that.

At Enchanted Rock, I believe we have a strong position in the data centre market, particularly in terms of flexible capacity and a bring-your-own-power model. If everything is moving towards BYOP to get interconnected in the large hyperscale campuses being built, then I absolutely see a future where small modular reactors and nuclear power experience a resurgence – perhaps five to seven years from now.

Until then, there still needs to be a dispatchable resource that supports wind and solar on the grid, because wind, solar and batteries still need firming.

I see Enchanted Rock helping transform data centres from grid liabilities into grid assets. That transition means large, megawatt-scale data centre campuses can participate in demand response with behind-the-meter generation assets – handling AI workloads that may not be easy for utilities to support. During any weather event or grid emergency, nobody’s going to want to throttle compute.

I see increased adoption of natural gas and more multi-asset sites. The future will require greater collaboration – particularly on the technical side. Say it’s Enchanted Rock with reciprocating engines (ReCIPs) and an AI workload: you still need some sort of capacitance, whether that’s supercapacitors, batteries, or another system.

It’s going to be ReCIPs plus something, batteries plus something. There’s no single solution that meets all requirements.

At the same time, there’s no silver bullet for handling large-scale AI workloads and sub-second power fluctuations. No mechanical system, whether turbines or ReCIPs, can handle that alone. It’ll come down to sub-cycle solutions like batteries and capacitors, a one-plus-one approach.

I see more collaboration between technologies to get the right mix onsite, along with optimisation of which assets run and when. Meanwhile, the traditional model of data centre design with diesel backup per data hall is also evolving, because when you bring your own power, with grid connection and the ability to flex power back during demand response, collaboration becomes essential.

Next for Enchanted Rock is to continue building. We’ve always had aspirations to be one of the first microgrids to use an SMR as part of the system. We are technology-agnostic and focused on helping the grid stay green through flexible interconnections, being masters of our domain, and expanding our capabilities.