MARA Holdings Inc. is embarking on a strategic transformation by moving beyond cryptocurrency mining into artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.
The company recently announced a $168 million agreement to acquire a 64% majority stake in EDF’s Exaion, a French firm specializing in high-performance computing and cloud services tailored for AI applications. MARA also holds an option to increase its ownership to 75% with an additional $127 million investment, signaling a strong commitment to this new direction.
Exaion operates data centres and cloud platforms with a focus on sovereign data control, allowing businesses to maintain ownership over sensitive information. MARA plans to leverage its strengths in energy management and infrastructure to build AI inference services. Unlike many competitors who target hyperscale cloud providers, MARA intends to support a broader adoption of AI by emphasizing inference — the process where trained AI models analyze and make decisions — rather than AI training itself, which requires far greater resources.
This move aligns with the booming demand for AI computing power, where companies with access to reliable, cost-effective energy have a competitive advantage. MARA already controls extensive energy assets and computing infrastructure through its Bitcoin mining operations, which it plans to continue. Alongside its new AI ambitions, MARA is actively growing its Bitcoin treasury and recently raised $950 million to further expand mining capacity. The company aims to serve as a stock market proxy for Bitcoin, akin to MicroStrategy’s strategy.
Notably, MARA Holdings’ recently recorded an impressive second-quarter financial performance, driven largely by a significant surge in Bitcoin’s price.
If this acquisition closes successfully, it will mark a significant evolution for MARA—from solely a Bitcoin mining leader to a diversified infrastructure powerhouse straddling two fast-growing sectors. This dual focus on cryptocurrency and AI infrastructure could enhance MARA’s long-term growth potential by capitalizing on alliance between efficient energy use, high-performance computing, and AI service delivery.
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