Stablecoin issuer Tether has is making a foray into artificial intelligence (AI) through a subsidiary co-owned by Northern Data Group (NB2), a Bitcoin (BTC) mining and data cloud provider.
Damoon Designated Activity, in which Frankfurt-based Northern Data acquired a majority stake in July, recently made a significant investment of 400 million euros (approximately $427 million) in Nvidia graphic processing units (GPUs), according to an announcement by the German company.
These GPUs are slated for deployment within Northern Data’s cloud service, Taiga Cloud, with plans to grant customer access starting late in the fourth quarter. This move marks another instance of Tether, the leading stablecoin company with $83 billion in USDT, diversifying beyond its original business focus.
Earlier this year, the firm ventured into BTC mining operations in South America and invested in a payment processor in Georgia.
Tether has long faced criticism within the crypto industry for its lack of transparency regarding stablecoin reserves and its controversial investment and lending activities. Meanwhile, Northern Data is a publicly traded data firm that has expanded its operations from cryptocurrency mining to providing computing power for AI-related data processing, leading to a 2.7% increase in its shares on Thursday, media reports said.
Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s Chief Technology Officer, expressed enthusiasm about the investment in Northern Data Group, referring to it as a venture into new technological frontiers. Importantly, Tether emphasized that this investment would not affect the backing reserves of its stablecoins.
