Source: iStock/pinglabel

Crypto-keen Japanese financial giant SBI has confirmed plans to collaborate with Whinstone, an American company that is currently building what will become the United States’ largest data center – and what its operators claim will be the world’s largest Bitcoin (BTC) mining facility.

The deal, per a joint press release, will see SBI team up with the American company, which is owned by Frankfurt-headquartered mining operator Northern Data. SBI’s mining arm SBI Crypto will set up shop in the new data center in Texas.

The companies revealed that they had been in talks regarding possible cooperation since the start of 2019. The new deal will see the American and German companies work with SBI Crypto on developing more “projects related to blockchain technology,” as well as “joint software development and deployment.”

SBI appears to have alluded to the new Texas project in its most recent presentation to shareholders, where it stated that it was closing down one international mining facility and looking to move into the American market.

The news comes hot on the heels of an SBI investment in crypto risk management platform Elliptic.

And SBI’s blockchain spending spree will likely not end there. The press release’s author wrote,

“SBI Crypto is also positioned for potential equity participation in Northern Data.”

Northern Data unveiled its plans for the facility last year. The facility is set to mine Bitcoin, and will have a 1-gigawatt capacity. Its constructors say the farm will be ready by the end of Q4 2020, and are building it in a patch of land purportedly over 400,000sqm in size.

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Meanwhile, SBI is know for praising Ripple (XRP), also stating that XRP is the most “practical and usable” token around. SBI and Ripple have a deep business partnership, and Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO of SBI, is a member of the latter company’s board. Also, SBI is among the investors that injected USD 200 million into Ripple in December 2019. Moreover, the holding aims to issue XRP tokens as company-wide shareholder rewards.

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