Russian Bitcoin mining supplier to spend over $130m on AI data centers: report

Russia’s crypto mining equipment supplier Intelion is reportedly considering an investment of over $130 million to develop AI data centers.

Moscow-headquartered crypto mining supplier Intelion is planning to spend up to 12 billion Russian rubles (over $130 million) on purchasing server equipment to build artificial intelligence (AI) data centers, Russian media RBC reports, citing Intelion Cloud head Maxim Vyaznikov.

As per the report, Intelion, which also operates a branch in Dubai, already possesses servers equipped with Nvidia’s A100 chips, despite a 2022 U.S. Department of Commerce ban on the sale of these chips to China and Russia.

Intelion’s new computing infrastructure will be based at a data center currently under construction in the Samara region, with the first phase of this data center expected to become operational in Q4 2024. The company plans to invest over 4 billion Russian rubles (approximately $44.7 million) in the facility over the next two and a half years.

Previously focused on importing mining rigs, Intelion appears to be shifting its strategy towards providing AI-related cloud services, leveraging its existing resources as other Russian companies also explore the expanding AI industry.

In early 2024, crypto.news reported that BitRiver, a Bitcoin mining company subject to OFAC sanctions, is also set to launch an AI-focused data center in Russia in the second half of 2024. According to Sergey Bezdelov, director of the Association of Industrial Mining, this data center is expected to have a capacity of 100 megawatts.