Why Mara Holdings Stock Spiked Today
Key Points
Mara is making an aggressive move into high-performance computing.
Developing AI data centers could be much more profitable than mining Bitcoin.
Shares of Mara Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) popped on Thursday after the digital infrastructure developer announced a major new project.
Image source: Getty Images.
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Land, power, and compute
Mara agreed to purchase powered land from sustainable fuels company HIF USA for an aggregate purchase price of up to $600 million.
The more than 1,200-acre site is located roughly 90 miles southwest of Houston, Texas. It's projected to provide access to up to 2 gigawatts (GW) of grid capacity by April 2028.
Mara plans to build a digital infrastructure campus in collaboration with Starwood Digital Ventures that can run artificial intelligence (AI) and other high-performance computing workloads, including Bitcoin mining operations.
Mara said prospective computing clients have already demonstrated interest in becoming tenants.
Construction is slated to start this year, subject to regulatory approval.
Shifting from Bitcoin to AI
The project is expected to more than double Mara's total power capacity to about 4.8 GW, thereby bolstering its standing as a provider of large-scale computing services.
"As demand for digital infrastructure continues to grow, we believe sites with access to reliable, scalable power will become increasingly valuable," Mara CEO Fred Thiel said. "This acquisition meaningfully expands our long-term development pipeline and strengthens our ability to support high-performance compute and maximize the value of that power over time."
Investors clearly approve of the strategy, which has the potential to be far more lucrative than Mara's prior focus on Bitcoin mining operations.
Joe Tenebruso has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.