MARA Holdings Presents at KeyBanc Capital Markets Tech Leadership Forum Conference Transcript

MARA Holdings, Inc. is a publicly traded Bitcoin miner and second-largest holder of Bitcoin globally. The company operates 16 data centers across four continents and owns wind farms and flare gas power generation sites. MARA is technologically vertically integrated and recently announced a control investment in a French technology company providing inference at the edge sovereign cloud and ESG-controlled compute.

MARA Holdings, Inc., a prominent Bitcoin miner and second-largest holder of Bitcoin globally, has announced a significant expansion into the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure sector. The company, which operates 16 data centers across four continents and owns wind farms and flare gas power generation sites, recently acquired a controlling stake in Exaion, a French high-performance computing and AI infrastructure firm.

According to MARA's SEC filing, MARA France SAS, the company's French unit, will acquire 64% of Exaion through a €168 million deal. This deal includes the purchase of 4.1 million newly issued shares and 1.2 million existing shares from EDF Pulse Holding and other minority owners. The acquisition is expected to close in late 2025 or early 2026, pending regulatory approvals in France and Canada [2].

The acquisition represents a strategic shift for MARA, which aims to transition from being known purely as a large-scale Bitcoin miner to becoming a major player in the AI infrastructure industry. The company plans to raise its ownership stake to approximately 75% by acquiring an additional 3.9 million shares in Exaion for about €110 million in March 2027 [2].

MARA's entry into the AI infrastructure sector is driven by the growing demand for advanced computing power capable of handling the enormous workloads required by AI applications. The company will focus on AI inference, which involves running and using already trained models to perform tasks, rather than investing heavily in training AI models from scratch [2].

The acquisition of Exaion complements MARA's existing expertise in managing large-scale, energy-intensive computing operations. By positioning itself to work directly with clients, MARA can offer tailored solutions that meet each client's specific computing and data needs, while also maintaining a link to its utility heritage through ESG-controlled compute [2].

MARA's expansion into AI infrastructure comes as the company continues to pursue an aggressive Bitcoin treasury strategy. The company has raised $950 million through equity and debt financing to buy more Bitcoin while continuing to hold onto every coin it mines. The acquisition of Exaion has given the company a market value of $5.8 billion after its shares rose 1.8% to $15.67 in the New York trading session [2].

The Exaion acquisition is a significant move for MARA, positioning the company to benefit from the rapidly growing AI sector while maintaining its leadership in the Bitcoin mining industry.

References:
[1] https://www.coinspeaker.com/public-uk-oil-company-advances-gas-powered-bitcoin-mining-on-site/
[2] https://cryptorank.io/news/feed/bbcee-mara-nears-168m-edf-deal-to-power-ai