• Shares of CleanSpark Inc. surged as much as 13% after the Bitcoin miner announced that it was expanding into data-center infrastructure and the hiring of Jeffrey Thomas.
  • Thomas joined CleanSpark as senior vice president of AI data centers and will lead the company’s efforts to develop and operate AI and high-performance compute data centers.
  • The stock rose 13% to around $22 as of 10:50 a.m. in New York, and is up almost 140% this year.

By: David Pan

Shares of CleanSpark Inc. surged as much as 13% after the Bitcoin miner announced that it was expanding into date-center infrastructure and the hiring of Jeffrey Thomas from Saudi Arabian AI firm Humain.

The Henderson, Nevada-based company is among crypto miners that are trying to kick start the build-out of AI data centers with their existing assets such as large amounts of power and experienced engineers.

Thomas joined CleanSpark as senior vice president of AI data centers after a stint as president at Humain. He will lead the company’s efforts to develop and operate AI and high-performance compute data centers, the company said in a statement on Monday.

“His track record of creating billions in shareholder value and forging partnerships with the world’s leading technology companies will be instrumental as we expand our operations and deliver diversified growth for our shareholders,” said Matt Schultz, chief executive at CleanSpark.

Bitcoin miners including Core Scientific and TeraWulf have seen a surge in stock prices since they announced multi-billion dollar contracts to support AI cloud services providers such as CoreWeave. These AI initiatives come as profit margins from crypto-mining shrink and more companies start minting tokens.

The hire came on the heel of a recent management change in August, in which Schultz, who founded the company, returned as CEO after Zachary Bradford departed. Thomas is set to hire a team to start building out its AI infrastructures on some of its existing as well as new sites, he said.

The stock rose 13% to around $22 as of 10:50 a.m. in New York, and is up almost 140% this year.