Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms is considering an expansion into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads.
As part of its pivot, the firm has appointed three new directors to its board to evaluate whether spare capacity can be repurposed.
Riot, which develops some of the largest mining facilities in the world, was initially against moving beyond crypto, eschewing a wider industry trend of crypto companies remaking themselves as AI hosters.
That changed in December when activist investor Starboard Value took a "significant position" in the business and urged it to change course. Fellow activist investment firm D.E. Shaw took a stake in January - with Riot announcing that it was launching a formal evaluation to potentially use 600MW of spare capacity at its Corsicana Facility in Texas for AI.
Now, the company says that has received increased inbound interest from multiple potential counterparties for the capacity, and has turned to investment bank Evercore to help evaluate any deals. It has also engaged Northland Capital Markets, Altman Solon, and others.
As for the board, Riot is adding three members, all with the input of the two activist investors: Doug Mouton, the former senior engineer lead of data center design engineering and construction at Meta and former VP of global data center delivery at Microsoft; Jaime Leverton, the former CEO of Hut 8 Mining Corp; and Michael Turner, president of real estate investor Oxford Properties Group.
Current directors Hannah Cho and Hubert Marleau will be retiring from the board.
“Jaime, Doug, and Michael bring complementary expertise to the Board that will be immediately applicable as we continue to assess how best to maximize the value of our unique assets," Benjamin Yi, executive chairman of Riot, said.
"We would like to thank each of Starboard and D. E. Shaw for their respective input and constructive approach throughout this process. I would also like to thank Hannah and Hubert on behalf of the entire board for their significant contributions during their time as directors. Their roles in the growth and evolution of Riot have been instrumental and we are grateful for their service to Riot and our shareholders.”
DCD profiled the broader crypto to AI pivot in the latest magazine. Read it for free today.
