Frankfurt-based tech company Northern Data, best known for bitcoin mining, recently shifted its business model to cloud solutions and data center infrastructure. The change caught the attention of investment bank Berenberg, which initiated coverage on the company's stock with a buy rating and a price target of 39 euros ($41.84) per share, up 53.2 from the current share price as of April 26. Indicates a percentage increase. Listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Northern Data has three primary divisions: Peak Mining for Bitcoin mining, Tyga Cloud for cloud computing and Ardent Data Centers for data center infrastructure. Berenberg believes the market has largely overlooked the growth potential of Taiga Cloud's offering. Northern Data's shares are also traded over the counter in Italy and the United States, but trading frequency and volume are expected to be much lower. The NB2-DE 1Y line is not the first business change for the company, which has been listed since 2015. Formerly known as Biosilu Healthcare, the company was a pharmaceutical broker for Asian markets until early 2018. And it was renamed Northern Bitcoin, making it one of the earliest listed firms to enter the crypto scene. In its current form, Northern Data continues to evolve with the acquisition of a data center in Pittsburgh earlier this year. The company said it will quadruple the facility by the second half of next year. Northern Data is also expected to benefit from the advances that its subsidiary Ardent Data Centers has made over the years in liquid cooling technology for its crypto mining operations. “We believe that Northern Data's significant investment in state-of-the-art liquid cooling mining technology and the company's expansion into its existing North Dakota and new Texas sites will position it to achieve higher Bitcoin yields and mining profitability. will enable,” Berenberg analysts Gerhard Orgonas and Jenna Xu said in an April 25 note to clients. “We believe that Northern Data's expertise in energy-efficient, state-of-the-art, liquid-cooled data centers makes it a competitive collocation services provider, especially for the increasing performance needs of generative-AI applications.” The investment bank estimates that Peak Mining could generate more than 170 million euros in revenue by next year, with an adjusted margin of more than 40%. But it's Northern Data's cloud solution that analysts are eyeing. The company's Taiga Cloud division is certified as an “Elite” partner of Nvidia, making it one of the largest providers of Nvidia-based cloud services in Europe. The investment bank forecasts annual revenue of around 400 million euros from 2026 onwards and an adjusted profit of around 290 million euros from Taiga Cloud. Northern Data's cloud computing platform will have 20,000 Nvidia AI chips by the third quarter of 2024, worth 730 million euros, the note said. Northern Data founder and CEO Arush Thilanathan has also expressed his confidence in the company by announcing plans to acquire shares worth up to €30 million this year. As of March 21, Thelanathan's stake in Northern Data Group had increased to 3.8 million shares, about 7.15 percent of the business's current share capital, the company said.
