Crypto miner Hive Digital drops ‘blockchain’ from name amid pivot to AI

Crypto mining firm Hive Blockchain has rebranded to Hive Digital Technologies to highlight its foray into artificial intelligence (AI).

In a July 12 statement, the Vancouver, Canada-based mining company said it has dropped “blockchain” from its name to better represent the company’s “evolving focus” on revenue opportunities in graphics processing units (GPUs) and cloud computing, as well as “its mission to drive advancements in AI” and support the “new Web3 ecosystem.”

“As we expand our GPU Cloud business, we require a strategy that better reflects both sides of our business. We build infrastructure for emerging digital tech, not just blockchain, and we intend to utilize our large fleet of GPUs to grow a cloud hosting business,” said Hive’s CEO Aydin Kilic in a July 12 filing to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

We’re excited to announce that today we officially changed our name to .

The name better reflects our evolving focus on cloud compute technology, AI and the Web3 ecosystem.

Read the press release: https://t.co/yczuLivGq6 pic.twitter.com/5jijZFqdeI

— HIVE Digital Technologies (@HIVEDigitalTech) July 12, 2023

Additionally, Hive said that it will use its 38,000-strong fleet of Nvidia GPUs to provide small and medium-sized businesses with a more efficient alternative to major cloud service providers.

“We believe AI and machine learning are going to drive significant demand for GPU compute going forward,“ Kilic added.

Related: Elon Musk kickstarts new AI company to ‘understand the universe’

While most crypto mining companies today focus on mining proof-of-work cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC), Hive was among a handful of firms that leveraged GPUs to mine Ether (ETH), the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, at scale.

Following the completion of the Ethereum Merge in September 2022 — which saw the blockchain transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, removing the need for miners — the GPUs once used to mine ETH were drastically less profitable.

Hive isn’t the first mining company to drop “blockchain” from its namesake. On Jan. 3, Bitcoin mining firm Riot Blockchain rebranded to Riot Platforms in a bid to reflect its “increasingly diversified business operations.”

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