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Crusoe raises $3.9B to build massive data centers and small modular “AI factories”

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Data center developer Crusoe said Thursday it raised $3.9 billion in a Series F round that pushes its valuation to $30.9 billion. The massive round was co-led by Atreides Management, Mubadala Capital, and Valor Equity Partners. Founders Fund, GIC, Nvidia, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Radical Ventures, and TPG also participated, according to Crusoe.

Crusoe also announced three new board members, including Cloudflare CFO Thomas Seifert, Bill Stein, partner and CIO at Primary Digital Infrastructure, and Redwood Materials founder and CEO JB Straubel, who also sits on Tesla’s board. Straubel already has ties to Crusoe; he personally invested in the company in 2021, and Crusoe later became the first customer of Redwood’s energy storage business.

The eight-year-old company’s fresh capital infusion will help finance existing data center projects, including a large site in Abilene, Texas, used by OpenAI, as well as smaller, modular AI factories that can be transported by truck and connected to large power sources almost anywhere.

By manufacturing these modular data centers, called Spark, at its own facilities, Crusoe can deploy compute capacity quickly and without the need for large construction workforces. The smaller centers could also help Crusoe sidestep, at least in part, another major obstacle facing data center developers: backlash from local communities protesting massive complexes near their neighborhoods.

Crusoe co-founder and CEO, who is pictured above, said in a statement he believes AI will usher in an era of abundance, but to get there will mean “controlling the infrastructure from electrons to tokens, and we’re grateful to have investors who share that conviction.”

The company makes money by leasing data center space to customers that bring their own GPUs, by renting out its own GPUs, and by selling compute power used to run AI models, known as inference.

This three-pronged business model has helped make Crusoe one of the most valuable AI infrastructure companies. Crusoe recently signed a massive $13 billion, five-year cloud contract to supply quantitative trading firm Jane Street with GPUs and AI infrastructure, Bloomberg reported.

The company recently met with investment bankers, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to discuss a potential IPO in the near future, Axios reported last month. 

The fresh fundraise comes 10 months after Crusoe raised $1.38 billion at a $10 billion valuation last October.

The company was founded in 2018 as a crypto mining operation powered by flared natural gas, but pivoted to AI infrastructure as demand for computing power skyrocketed. Crusoe’s customers include Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle.

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‘2027 will be different from 2023’ – Wike says Amaechi not giving Tinubu sleepless nights

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The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Nyesom Wike, on Tuesday, declared that what Nigerians saw during the 2023 presidential election will be totally different from what they would see in 2027.

Wike made the remark while dismissing claims that the African Democratic Congress, ADC, presidential running mate, Rotimi Amaechi, is giving President Bola Tinubu sleepless nights ahead of the 2027 elections.

The minister spoke during his monthly media chat in Abuja.

Wike said: “I watched Amaechi; he had a town hall meeting in Cross River and I counted the number; they were not up to 200 people.

“He told them that this election has been won, he told them ‘can I tell you how this election will be handled?’ Atiku is from North, Tinubu is from South, Obi is from South, Donald Duke is from South and Atiku has won the election.

“That is what he was telling stakeholders in a town hall meeting in Cross River State. How can a vice presidential candidate go to a town hall meeting and he is telling his supporters that do you know that this election has been won?

“I have always told people that what you saw in 2023 will be totally different from what you will see in 2027. Mind you, in the South-East, it was difficult for most of the governors to campaign but now look at the campaign going on in the South-East.

“You think that what happened in 2023 will be the same thing in 2027, certainly not.”

Dismissing Amaechi’s political relevance, he recalled how the late former President Muhammadu Buhari could not get 25 percent with him as campaign director general.

He added: “Amaechi won his last election in 2011 and I was the DG of his campaign, when I left him and became a minister, he was governor. See the margin, I had one million votes and he had 100,000 votes in 2015, in 2019 he was the DG of Buhari and he could not get 25 percent of the votes for his candidate.

“In 2019 when they came with federal might to Rivers, the military, even the American marine came, they brought everything but he couldn’t get 25 percent as he is the super Minister of Transportation.

“In 2023, he was still a minister, supported Atiku and he didn’t get 15 percent. What has Amaechi done for the people of the state to now change their mind to support him?

“He was Minister of Transportation

and not one port is in the South-South, so what has he attracted to the South-South and Rivers State to make them support him.”

‘2027 will be different from 2023’ – Wike says Amaechi not giving Tinubu sleepless nights

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NPFL: Odah confident Plateau United will compete well this season

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Plateau United goalkeeper, Okiemute Odah, has expressed optimism that the team will achieve success in the current campaign.

The Peace Boys have started their Nigeria Premier Football League, NPFL, campaign on a bright note with four wins, two draws and two defeats in eight matches.

Plateau United thrashed Kano Pillars 4-0 in their last league fixture at the New Jos Stadium on Sunday.

Odah, who has recorded three clean sheets for the Jos-based club this season, enjoined supporters to continue believing in the team.

“I want to thank my teammates and the coaches because it’s a collective game, the result against Kano Pillars is good for us and if we continue like this we will do more better,” Odah told Plateau United media.

“I want to urge the fans to support us that we can do it and we will make them proud.”

NPFL: Odah confident Plateau United will compete well this season

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