CleanSpark (NASDAQ:CLSK) shares surged 14% in Monday afternoon trading after the company said it’s expanding beyond bitcoin (BTC-USD) mining by developing and operating AI data center infrastructure, joining a growing number of rival miners pivoting to AI to diversify revenues.
The Nevada-based company has tapped Jeffrey Thomas — who has over four decades of experience in emerging technologies and data center infrastructure — as senior vice president of CleanSpark’s (NASDAQ:CLSK) AI Data Centers business.
Thomas is joining CleanSpark (CLSK) from his role as president of AI Data Centres at Humain, where he spearheaded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s multi-billion AI data center program.
“We have been reviewing the entire portfolio from first principals to evaluate AI suitability and have identified Georgia as a strategic region for both potential conversion as well as expansion,” said Scott Garrison, chief development officer and executive vice president at CleanSpark.
“We recently contracted for additional power and real estate in College Park to deliver high-value compute to the greater Atlanta metro area and are evaluating giga-campus opportunities across the portfolio and pipeline that are well positioned to satisfy significant off-taker demand. With Jeff on board, we are ready to rapidly scale and continue maximizing the value of our growing power and land footprint,” he added.
Crypto miners are increasingly pivoting to AI as their existing large power-intensive sites are well-suited to handle AI/high-performance computing workloads. Also, on a per kilowatt-hour (kWh) basis, AI compute could earn 25 times as much as bitcoin mining.
Meanwhile, crypto miners turned AI infrastructure providers, including CLSK, Cipher Mining (CIFR), Bitdeer Technologies (BTDR) and MARA Holdings (MARA), were among some of the biggest intraday gainers Monday, amid a broader crypto-market rally..