(Sept 25): Alphabet Inc’s Google will receive the right to buy a 5.4% stake in Cipher Mining Inc as part of a multi-year data centre deal with Fluidstack, an artificial intelligence (AI) computing start-up.

Google agreed to guarantee US$1.4 billion (RM5.9 billion) of Fluidstack’s obligations in the contract with Cipher, the data centre operator said in a statement. Fluidstack has an initial 10-year deal to lease capacity from Cipher, representing about US$3 billion in revenue.

It’s the second such deal Google and Fluidstack struck in the last two months, a sign of the rampant demand for resources to power AI services. Google is one of the largest spenders on computing capacity in Silicon Valley, deploying tens of billions of dollars a year for its products and cloud business. The company mostly spends on its own data centres, but it has started, like its rival Microsoft Corp, to partner with newer AI cloud specialists, such as Fluidstack, as a way to access additional computing resources.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cipher, whose data centres have been used to mine cryptocurrencies, said it will use Google’s backstop agreement to help it borrow funds to expand. The contract includes two potential five-year extensions that would add an additional US$4 billion in revenue, Cipher said. 

New York-based Cipher’s shares jumped as much as 24% in pre-market trading before New York exchanges opened. The stock closed at US$14.14 on Wednesday and has more than tripled this year. 

There’s a surge in spending on “neocloud” operators that can provide companies with extra computing resources to fuel the boom in AI, which requires high-performance data centres to train and deploy models. Companies that formerly provided capacity for crypto mining have a lot of the infrastructure in place already and have become targets for this type of investment.

It’s a similar deal to one Google struck with TeraWulf Inc, another cryptocurrency mining data centre operator, where Google received warrants to acquire up to 14% of the company. In that deal, Google also agreed to backstop a decade-long Fluidstack contract to buy capacity. 

Earlier this year, Fluidstack, a new UK start-up with little track record, said it would be involved in building a €10 billion (US$11.8 billion or RM49.5 billion) “supercomputer” in France.