SWI Group Raises $900 Million for AI Data Center Expansion, to Use FTX-Linked Miner's Facilities

Global investment firm SWI Group has secured about $900 million to expand its artificial intelligence data center business.

Cointelegraph reported on October 12 that SWI Group had raised 800 million euros, or about $900 million, to expand AI computing and data center infrastructure in Europe and the US. The project will also use facilities owned by Genesis Digital Assets, a Bitcoin mining company previously tied to the collapsed crypto exchange FTX.

SWI Group announced in June that it had acquired a major stake in Genesis Digital Assets for $500 million. At the time, Genesis had secured 1.3 gigawatts of power capacity across 15 sites. SWI Group later increased its holdings and, as of August, owned 70% of Genesis. It also renamed the company SWI Digital.

SWI Group plans to integrate the acquired mining infrastructure into a data center network built to meet AI computing demand. The strategy is to use the power and computing infrastructure already developed for crypto mining to expand its AI business.

Genesis Digital Assets also drew scrutiny during the FTX bankruptcy over efforts to recover invested funds. Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX's former chief executive officer, is reported to have directed affiliated trading firm Alameda Research to spend more than $1 billion between 2021 and 2022 to acquire a 20% stake in Genesis. After FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, that investment also became the subject of legal disputes.

SWI Group said the legal uncertainty tied to Genesis had been resolved. Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Max-Hervé George said all legal disputes related to FTX's investment in Genesis had been settled, according to the report. That leaves SWI Group positioned to accelerate its AI data center expansion with the new funding and existing mining infrastructure.