Bitcoin mining company MARA Holdings has signed an agreement to acquire a 64% stake in Exaion, a subsidiary of the French electricity company Électricité de France, for $168 million. Électricité de France is one of the world's largest low-carbon energy producers, and this acquisition marks MARA's largest investment in the field of artificial intelligence to date.
The agreement was announced on Tuesday. It includes an option allowing MARA to invest an additional $127 million before 2027, increasing its stake to 75%, provided that certain performance milestones are met.
Today, MARA and @EDFofficiel signed an investment agreement in subsidiary Exaion to expand MARA’s global AI/HPC capabilities.📄 Read the press release: https://t.co/mH0z6X8NWK pic.twitter.com/HHUyRXQDEj
Exaion develops high-performance computing (HPC) data centers and collaborates with AI giant Nvidia and the Big Four accounting firm Deloitte to provide AI and cloud infrastructure.
MARA stated that the agreement now enables Exaion to transition to larger-scale international deployments to serve enterprise and public sector clients.
The transaction is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter, pending necessary approvals.
MARA's CEO and Chairman Fred Thiel added, “As data protection and energy efficiency become top priorities for governments and businesses, the combined expertise of MARA and Exaion will enable us to provide secure and scalable cloud solutions built for the future of AI.”
As MARA expands its artificial intelligence business, the difficulty of Bitcoin (BTC) mining has significantly increased, leading to higher energy consumption and squeezing profit margins for mining companies, which need to rely on more efficient equipment or lower energy costs to adapt to changes.
MARA is one of the leading mining companies globally in terms of Bitcoin production, network hash rate, and market capitalization, but it entered the AI field relatively late in the industry.
In comments made on Monday through X Spaces, Thiel mentioned that MARA “deliberately chose not to participate in the first wave of mining companies expanding into AI and high-performance computing data centers.”
“MARA chose to invest in partners with expertise, customer resources, and a track record of success, rather than retrofitting existing mining sites,” said the head of MARA, adding, “This allows us to operate in a faster, smarter, and more reliable way.”
In July, MARA produced 703 Bitcoins, and this month, its output was unusually lower than that of competitor IREN, which set a company record by producing 728 Bitcoins. The decline in MARA's output may be due to a reduction in the number of devices participating in Bitcoin mining.
Despite this, MARA's revenue in the second quarter increased by 64% year-on-year, reaching $238 million, and it currently holds 50,000 Bitcoins, with a total value of nearly $6 billion, making it the second-largest Bitcoin reserve company after Michael Saylor's Strategy.
Related: ALT5 Sigma raises $1.5 billion for the first World Liberty Financial (WLFI) corporate treasury
Original article: “Bitcoin (BTC) mining company MARA acquires majority stake in Exaion, entering the artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) fields”
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
