Midland-based Mawson Infrastructure Group announced that it will expand into Perry County, Ohio.
The company, which previously expanded its bitcoin mining operations earlier this year, expects to utilize the Ohio facilities it has leased as part of plans "to bolster long-term [artificial intelligence and high-performance computing] growth capabilities." While initial construction on the facilities begins, the company plans to invite AI and HPC industry members "to discuss opportunities to partner and collaborate."
GPUs, the components that were over the past decade predominantly used for video game systems and bitcoin mining, have become increasingly in demand with the rapid rise of AI technologies in recent years, putting companies like Mawson that mine cryptocurrencies in an advantageous position.
"We expect digital infrastructure for high-performance and accelerated computing to become increasingly valuable and we are excited about our expansion to Ohio, building upon our recent expansion in Pennsylvania which we successfully completed last quarter," President and CEO Rahul Mewawalla said in a prepared statement.
The facility expands the company's access to electricity from the PJM market. Contractual agreements have secured the digital infrastructure company access to an initial 24 megawatts of electrical capacity, which would raise the company's total electrical capabilities to 153 megawatts. Given the highly complex computational nature of Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing, consistent energy access is critical.
"Our expansion into Ohio further increases our footprint in the PJM market, the largest wholesale electric market in North America and amongst the most attractive markets in our view for [artificial intelligence] and [high-performance computing]," Mewawalla said in a prepared statement. "We are also seeing companies such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google expanding their operations in the PJM market, which speaks favorably to its future growth opportunities."
In his statement, Mewawalla emphasized the company's goals of becoming completely carbon-free. The significant energy usage of high-performance computing has often been criticized by policymakers and activists, while the cryptocurrency sector has faced greater scrutiny. A report from the United Nations found that in 2020-2021, the global Bitcoin mining network consumed 173.42 terawatt hours of electricity, which "means that if Bitcoin were a country, its energy consumption would have ranked 27th in the world, ahead of a country like Pakistan, with a population of over 230 million people."
"We are extremely proud of our Carbon-Free energy approach, including nuclear energy, as we continue to expand our digital infrastructure platforms to serve AI, HPC and digital assets markets," Mewawalla said in a prepared statement.
