Europe’s leading Bitcoin miner and data cloud provider – Northern Data – announced securing EUR 575 million (worth over $609 million) debt financing facility from stablecoin issuer, Tether after entering into a loan agreement.

The facility, operating under standard market conditions, is unsecured and set to mature on January 1, 2030, and is expected to allow Northern Data Group to make further investments across its three business lines Taiga Cloud, Ardent Data Centers, and Peak Mining.

Tether’s Investments in Northern Data

According to the official announcement, the investments will primarily focus on acquiring additional sophisticated hardware enabling Northern Data’s Taiga Cloud business to expand its services as a Generative Artificial Intelligence Cloud Service Provider in Europe.

The capital will also support the expansion of the Bitcoin mining giant’s portfolio of data centers through Ardent Data Centers, its data center infrastructure business, besides improving its existing operations.

Meanwhile, the Frankfurt-based company further revealed that it intends to utilize the financing to significantly scale its Bitcoin mining operations by incorporating purpose-built, liquid-cooling mining technology within its mining business, Peak Mining.

Northern Data is a publicly listed data firm that has expanded its operations beyond cryptocurrency mining to offer computational capabilities for AI-driven data processing. This pivot aligned with the broader industry trend, where leading Bitcoin miners shifted their focus towards meeting the rising demands for AI and computational services in response to a challenging year for the mining sector.

Subsequently, in September, Tether announced a strategic investment into Northern Data Group marking its diversification into artificial intelligence via the Bitcoin miner. As part of the agreement, Tether acquired a major stake in the Bitcoin miner and purchased 10,000 cloud computing machines to support the company.

Tether’s Bitcoin Mining Pivot

Tether has faced years of criticism in the industry due to its alleged lack of transparency regarding the reserves backing its stablecoin and its investment and lending practices. These challenges, however, have failed to faze the stablecoin issuer from expanding beyond its initial business scope.

The company behind the USDT stablecoin has made investments in Bitcoin mining operations in South America and a payment processing venture in Georgia this year. It has also participated in El Salvador’s $1 billion Bitcoin mining initiative.