SWI raises $894 million to repurpose former FTX bitcoin miner Genesis Digital to AI

By CoinDesk

SWI Group (SWICH), which controls the former FTX-owned bitcoin (BTC) miner Genesis Digital Assets, said it raised 800 million euros ($894 million) from institutional investors to expand its data center and artificial intelligence (AI) computing data-center projects in Europe and the U.S.

The Euronext Amsterdam-listed company, an investment firm concentrating on digital infrastructure, said the capital increase values it at 6.1 billion euros. It announced the purchase of about 40% of Genesis Digital in June for $500 million, completing the acquisition in August with 70% of the voting rights and renaming the unit SWI Digital.

The company's strategy illustrates what has become a familiar trade for bitcoin-mining enterprises. Their most valuable asset is no longer their mining machines, but the power connections and the data-center sites that can be repurposed for AI customers. Bitcoin miners have signed more than $70 billion in AI and high-performance computing contracts, as they seek steadier revenue than bitcoin mining currently provides.

The pivot from cryptocurrency mining to processing AI computations puts it in the same race as listed miners such as TeraWulf (WULF) and Core Scientific (CORZ), which are converting power access and data-center capacity into AI hosting businesses.

SWI CEO Max-Hervé George told the Wall Street Journal he had “zero interest” in bitcoin mining. The company is selling Genesis Digital Assets’ sites in Kazakhstan and aims to use its U.S. and Swedish facilities for AI workloads instead.

Alameda Research, the crypto trading firm owned by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, invested more than $1 billion in Genesis Digital Assets from 2021 and owned about 20% of the miner, the WSJ said. FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, leaving that investment among the many assets scrutinized by the estate.

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