Business Wire·Sep 17, 2026, 8:05 AM ET

Volato Group Names Chris Ensey Chief Executive Officer Following Completion of Alignment Engine Merger

SOAR MARA RIOT

Chris Ensey appointed Chief Executive Officer of Volato Group, Inc. (NYSE: SOAR) effective September 11, 2026, following the merger with Alignment Engine Inc.
Alignment Engine valued at approximately $500 million during the merger, marking Volato's entry into AI infrastructure by combining its public platform with Alignment Engine's Ohio campus.
The new model focuses on community-anchored industrial campuses that pair sovereign AI compute with manufacturing & re-industrialization to optimize energy, water, & thermal infrastructure.
The Ohio campus currently has 154 MW of power available with a roadmap to expand to 480 MW.
The strategy targets enterprise demand for sovereign compute that is physically located in the U.S., contractually dedicated, auditable, & operated with national-security-grade cybersecurity.
Ensey brings nearly two decades of experience, including leading a 105 MW facility in Montana, restructuring Riot Blockchain, & serving as CTO at cyber defense firm BlueVoyant.
The company plans phased GPU deployments at the Ohio site prioritizing computational output per unit of energy while utilizing proprietary NeuralSync technology for accelerator coordination.
Volato intends to sell capacity directly to enterprise AI customers while continuing to operate its aviation software business, including the Parslee autonomous-work platform & Vaunt private aviation marketplace.
The AI data center market was valued at $147.3 billion in 2025 & projected to reach $810.6 billion by 2033, representing a 23.9% compound annual growth rate.
Volato Group is an AI infrastructure & software company headquartered in North Canton, Ohio, combining data center infrastructure with high-density GPU compute for AI training, inference, & HPC workloads.