Video-sharing platform Rumble is making waves again this time, not for viral videos, but for a bold move into artificial intelligence and high-powered cloud computing.
The company announced on August 10 that it’s exploring an all-stock acquisition of Northern Data, a Tether-backed AI and data center operator with serious infrastructure muscle. While the deal isn’t final yet, it could reshape Rumble into a global AI cloud leader.
📜 The Offer on the Table
Under the proposal, Northern Data shareholders would receive 2.319 newly issued Class A Rumble shares for each of their own shares. If every shareholder accepts, they’d collectively own about one-third (33.3%) of the new combined company.
Rumble emphasized that the acquisition is still subject to due diligence, negotiations, and regulatory approvals, so nothing’s set in stone just yet.
🏢 Why Northern Data?
Rumble started as a haven for independent vloggers and small creators, but in recent years it’s been branching out especially into cloud infrastructure and digital asset services to compete with the tech giants.
Northern Data brings two major assets to the table:
- Taiga, a GPU-as-a-service platform with an impressive arsenal of 20,480 Nvidia H100 GPUs and 2,048 H200 GPUs.
- Ardent, a large-scale data center unit with five sites boasting potential energized capacity of nearly 850 MW including a 180 MW facility in development in Georgia.
Integrating these into Rumble’s ecosystem would give the platform a huge boost in AI computing power.
⛏ The Mining Business Exit
One condition of the deal is that Northern Data must sell its Peak Mining bitcoin division. That’s already in motion. On the same day Rumble’s interest became public, Northern Data announced a non-binding deal to sell Peak Mining to U.S.-based Elektron Energy for up to $235 million $175 million upfront, and the rest tied to performance milestones.
This sale will allow Northern Data to double down on its AI ambitions, with proceeds going toward repaying part of an outstanding shareholder loan from Tether.
💰 Tether’s Big Role
Tether best known for its USDT stablecoin owns about 54% of Northern Data and invested $775 million in Rumble last year. The company is fully backing the acquisition plan, pledging to swap its entire Northern Data stake for Rumble shares at the agreed exchange rate.
Tether would also become a major Rumble customer, committing to a multi-year GPU purchase deal, and plans to amend the terms of its loan to Northern Data, which will remain in place after the acquisition.
🚀 The Bigger Picture
If the acquisition goes through, Rumble would go from a social video platform to a serious global AI cloud contender, leveraging Northern Data’s infrastructure to power everything from advanced AI workloads to high-performance computing services.
