Northern Data: US$16bn IPO for Ardent & Taiga

Northern Data is considering moving its data centre and cloud business units to the public markets, in the US. The company is said to be considering an IPO for its cloud division Taiga, as well as its data centre business, Ardent. 

Northern Data utilises High Performance Computing in its research, development and business. In its 11 data centres, the company combines self-developed software with sustainable processes. The company was founded in 2009 as Northern Bitcoin AG in Germany, in 2019 Northern Data Group merged with Whinstone US. 

Northern Data is based in Frankfurt, Germany, one of the leading countries for data centre development in Europe. Germany boasts the second-largest number of data centres worldwide, with a market size estimated at 1.72 thousand MW in 2024. It is expected to reach 2.36 thousand MW by 2029. 

In 2023, Northern Data separated its business into three divisions - Ardent, Taiga, and Peak Mining, which contains all its crypto mining operations. 

Ardent’s sustainable data centre innovation

Ardent’s purpose-built, cutting-edge infrastructure enables organisations to reach new heights in the data centre sector. The company harnesses the data centre industry's more advanced compute capabilities, coupled with the latest flexible liquid cooling technologies, to deliver unparalleled performance, density and availability. 

Ardent Data Centers stands at the forefront of sustainability innovation, especially in regards to renewable energy strategies and waste-reduction solutions.

Aroosh Thillainathan, Northern Data CEO, said that sustainable data centre expansion was proceeding rapidly and on schedule.

“The Boden site is highly efficient and based on renewable energy at the most favourable conditions in the EU, while at the same time we have every opportunity to scale up almost at will,” he said.

As a result, the site marks an important milestone in the roadmap, since it will enable Northern Data to meet the massive demand for HPC computing power effectively.

"As a European company, we are not subject to the U.S. Cloud Act, which, in contrast, secures U.S. authorities access to the stored data of large American hyperscalers," Aroosh adds. "The data sovereignty we can offer in comparison is another selling proposition that makes us particularly attractive to certain customers and drives demand."

Taiga: industry-leading, next-generation solutions

Northern Data also just announced that it has purchased 2,000 of Nvidia’s H200 GPUs. These will run in one of the European data centres and will later be offered to customers of Taiga.

Speaking at Cloud & 5G LIVE, Karl Havard, the then-Managing Director at Taiga Cloud, shared with the audience the motivations, strategies and implementation processes behind Europe's largest Gen AI Cloud. Northern Data has stated that it is the first cloud provider in Europe to offer H200s to its clients, which will come online later this year.

“This is testament to our commitment to continually offer industry-leading, next-generation solutions,” said CEO Aroosh Thillainathan. “As an elite partner of Nvidia, we are proud to continue to offer cutting-edge technology, deployed in line with recommended architecture references to maximise the technology.”

In addition to this, Northern Data and Nvidia also launched the inaugural AI Accelerator programme in June, to help startups develop their AI offerings. This initiative aims to fast-track AI innovation by providing selected startups with complimentary access to state-of-the-art NVIDIA HGX H100 GPU servers.

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