WORLD LARGEST HPC DATA CENTER DEVELOPMENT

High-performance computing (HPC) solutions provider Northern Data AG, has announced plans to expand its new HPC data center in Texas to an operating capacity of 1,000MW (1GW).

Operated by Whinstone US, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northern Data, the Texas facility is capable of covering an area of 40 hectares upon full development, corresponding to an expansion of around 57 soccer fields through the control of hundreds of thousands of high-performance computers operating in parallel.

“We are very proud to have successfully started up our data center in the second quarter. We are currently ramping up our capacity as planned and build up in stages to now reach a capacity of one gigawatt by the end of the current year,” said Aroosh Thillainathan, CEO of Northern Data AG.

The initial phase of the data center has been completed and opened for operation, running Northern Data self-developed artificial intelligence (AI) system and in its first year of operation.

The first customers of the data center, who are now operational, include SBI Crypto Co. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of SBI Holdings Inc. in the areas of applied blockchain technology.

“We are thrilled to be one of the first customers at Northern Data’s site in Texas, the largest mining and HPC data center in the world,” said Carson Smith, CEO of SBI Crypto.

“We are pleased with the professionalism of Northern Data. We planned this together in advance, and once all the pieces came together, Northern Data reliably executed the build-out. We know we can depend on their capabilities if we expand our operation. We are also excited to also collaborate with them on our mining pool, other software and strategic initiatives.”

In line with the development of the Texas HPC facility, the company said it intends to provide investors an updated guidance for 2020 together with an expanded outlook for 2021 in due course. Furthermore, an expansion to 3,600MW (3.6GW) is planned by 2023 at the latest.