Tether, the issuer of the largest stablecoin by market cap, is making a strategic investment into artificial intelligence (AI). The company announced that it had bought a stake in Northern Data Group in a press release on Thursday.
The investment was made through Tether group company, Damoon, and continues the $83 billion stablecoin giant’s push beyond its traditional realm of FinTech, following recent investments in energy production, bitcoin mining and communications technology.
The investment is said to demonstrate Tether’s commitment to supporting emerging technology, and the company calls Northern Data Group a ‘true pioneer’, which is “set to become the biggest independent AI player in Europe.”
“Tether looks forward to its collaboration with Northern Data Group on several initiatives that aim to leverage AI, peer-to-peer communications, and super-resilient data storage solutions, to develop accessible solutions globally and locally…”
Though Tether did not disclose the value of the investment, it did state that an earlier report by Forbes contained inaccuracies regarding the size of the company’s stake.
According to Forbes, Tether spent $420 million on 10,000 of Nvidia’s H100 GPU’s, which are being snapped up like hot cakes by AI companies wishing to crunch massive amounts of data. Forbes reported that this saw Tether take a 20% stake in Northern Data Group, which plans to lease the chips to AI startups.
As Northern Data Group closed the week’s trading with a market cap of 497.75 million euros ($530.25 million) there would clearly appear to be something amiss with Forbes figures, unless Tether has significantly overpaid for its stake.
Tether’s press release is at pains to point out that this investment has not been made with tether’s reserves, and is completely separate from the customer funds which back the stablecoin. The company’s Q2 Consolidated Reserves Report was issued in early August, although many argue that these go into too little detail to significantly enhance transparency.
Tether has also previously announced that it will regularly allocate 15% of its net realized operating profits into bitcoin, with CEO Paolo Arduino describing the granddaddy of cryptocurrencies as:
“not only a way to enhance the performance of our portfolio, but it is also a method of aligning ourselves with a transformative technology that has the potential to reshape the way we conduct business and live our lives.”
With its latest investment into artificial intelligence, Tether would seem to be following this mantra to the letter. We can’t wait to Observe what the stablecoin issuer chooses to splash out on next.
