GPU-based artificial intelligence (AI) cloud provider Nscale has acquired Kontena, a high-density modular data center and AI data center solutions provider.
The acquisition is hoped to contribute to Nscale's infrastructure backbone for its GPU cloud.
Neither the value of the deal, nor other terms, has been publicly shared.
Jef Laurijssen, CEO of Kontena, said: “Joining forces with Nscale provides us with an incredible opportunity to accelerate the development and deployment of cutting-edge Generative AI Data Center solutions. Our combined expertise will enable us to deliver unparalleled value to our customers in the AI and HPC markets.”
Kontena's flagship product is the Edge data room, a modular generative AI data center solution that can deploy AI infrastructure on-premises and in remote locations.
Nscale will be able to deploy Kontena's modular data centers at its 100 percent renewable energy-powered sites located in Norway and the US.
Joshua Payne, CEO of Nscale, said: “The acquisition of Kontena allows Nscale to design, build, and deploy bespoke GPU clusters at scale for global Generative AI customers more quickly and more cost-effectively than the competition. Building Kontena into the Nscale value chain will allow us to deliver bespoke GPU superclusters and data center builds for our large supercluster and hyperscale customers across Nscale’s 500MW of greenfield data center capacity."
He added: "This modular system can be deployed in Nscale’s data centers, on-premise, or at the Edge to deliver unrivaled speed, performance, and efficiency on GenAI workloads. This is an important step towards our goal of vertical integration.”
The acquisition shortly follows Nscale's partnership with Open Innovation AI, a GPU orchestration platform in MENA which is aiming to deploy 30,000 GPUs over the next three months.
Nscale officially launched in May 2024. The company offers a GPU cloud based on AMD hardware, specifically AMD's Instinct M1300X accelerators as well as AMD MI250 GPUs and Nvidia’s A100, H100, and V100 GPUs.
The company was spun out of Arkon Energy, an owner and operator of Bitcoin sites in Australia and internationally with a focus on behind-the-meter facilities at renewable energy sites, mining its own coins, and hosting hardware for other miners.
Arkon has previously teamed up with Kontena, deploying two of its mining containers at Arkon's Glomfjord, Northern Norway site.
Nscale operates a 60MW data center at the Glomfjord site that was previously owned by Arkon, and claims to have a pipeline of over 500MW of greenfield data centers across the US.
Many crypto companies have at least partially pivoted to AI, including CoreWeave, Core Scientific, Hut 8, TeraWulf, and Applied Digital, previously known as Applied Blockchain.
