MARA Holdings, Inc. Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call

Greetings, and welcome to the MARA fourth quarter 2025 Earnings Call. This conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Robert Samuels, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you, Robert. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to MARA's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Call. Thank you for joining us today. With me on today's call are our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Fred Thiel; and our Chief Financial Officer, Salman Khan. Today's call includes forward-looking statements, including those about our growth plans, liquidity and financial performance. These involve risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. We disclaim any obligation to update these statements, except as required by law. For more details, see the Risk Factors section of our latest 10-K and other SEC filings. We'll also reference non-GAAP financial measures like adjusted EBITDA and return on capital employed, which we believe are important indicators of MARA's operating performance because they exclude certain items that we do not believe directly reflect our core operations. Please see our earnings release for reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures. We hope you've had the chance to read our shareholder letter and look forward to your feedback. We'll begin with some brief prepared remarks from Fred and Salman. After their comments, we will open the call to Q&A. I'm going to turn the call over to Fred to kick things off. Fred?

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Before we get into the results for the quarter, we're excited to discuss our just announced strategic partnership with Starwood Digital Ventures, the data center development platform of Starwood Capital Group and one of the premier data center developers and operators in the world. This joint venture accelerates MARA's expansion into AI and high-performance computing and represents a meaningful step forward in the evolution of our platform from a pure-play Bitcoin miner into an energy and digital infrastructure company. Alongside other actions we have taken, including closing our investment in Exaion, we are strategically positioning our platform to support a broad range of AI deployment requirements from large-scale cloud environments to private enterprise and sovereign deployments, where AI inference operates closer to its contextual data with reduced latency constraints and enhanced operational control. Through our partnership, MARA and Starwood will jointly develop, finance, and operate next-generation digital infrastructure capable of meeting growing demand from enterprise hyperscale and AI customers across MARA's existing power-rich portfolio. MARA will contribute dedicated energy, advanced data center sites, while Starwood Digital Ventures will lead design developments, tenant sourcing, construction and facility operation with Starwood providing investment expertise to support enhanced project-level economics. We have the option to retain up to 50% ownership in the joint venture, positioning us to participate in future cash flows while capturing long-term value creation. The joint platform is expected to deliver more than 1 gigawatt of near-term IT capacity with a pathway to more than 2.5 gigawatts. This JV structure accomplishes several things at once. It accelerates speed to market and introduces institutional-grade development and tenant relationships. Importantly, it also allows us to leverage the wealth of power capacity embedded in our existing energized sites in the near term. These assets were built around power, and hyperscale cloud remains the fastest path to monetization that power at scale today. At the same time, the structure allows us to continue mining through a lease arrangement while accessing excess power at preferred prices during lower hyperscale utilization. That flexibility improves economics and smooths load across the site. Now let me address directly why we chose to partner with Starwood. Enterprise, hyperscale, and AI customers are inherently risk-averse when selecting infrastructure partners. They require certainty of execution, deep development expertise, balance sheet credibility, and a proven track record of delivering mission-critical facilities on time and on specification. While MARA brings the power, the sites, and the operational expertise, hyperscalers typically do not award large-scale AI workloads to first-time developers without institutional backing. Partnering with Starwood ensures that we're not asking customers to take that risk. Starwood has decades of experience as a real estate asset investor and developer, established long-term relationships with hyperscalers and enterprise customers, and a proven ability to finance and deliver complex data center projects globally. By aligning with an experienced tenant-first developer, we expect to increase execution certainty and accelerate our ability to secure institutional-grade tenancy. This is about optimizing probability of success and compressing timelines, not simply proving we can build things alone. Demand signals are already strong. MARA and Starwood have been engaged in active discussions with hyperscalers and leading HPC tenants, reflecting meaningful early interest in power-advantaged AI-ready capacity across our sites. In parallel, design, permitting and commercial leasing processes are well underway, with applications submitted in select markets to support accelerated delivery timelines. In other words, while we are formally announcing this partnership today, we are already well down the path towards securing a tenant. We also announced that we closed our investments in Exaion, acquiring a 64% stake and expanding our enterprise-grade AI and HPC capabilities. Through Exaion, we can deliver Infrastructure-as-a-Service and edge inference solutions for large energy and industrial customers, particularly in environments where requirements around data locality, latency, and operational control shape how compute is deployed. Importantly, Exaion fits in a broader international strategy. Building on our proven success in the UAE and the recent launch of our pilot site in Oman, we are accelerating conversations with energy majors in France regarding global opportunities, including in Brazil as well as domestic energy producers in Saudi Arabia. These initiatives are all part of a deliberate strategy to expand our global footprint across energy-rich regions, where access to reliable, scalable power supports long-term infrastructure development. Starwood and Exaion are complementary elements of the same strategy. Where Starwood partnership accelerates our ability to serve hyperscale cloud customers, Exaion strengthens our ability to deploy private enterprise and sovereign cloud environments. This is especially important in international markets where Exaion already operates data center infrastructure and provides a foundation for sovereign-grade AI and high-performance compute deployments. Together, Starwood and Exaion give MARA multiple proven pathways to deploy the same assets, power sites, and infrastructure in ways that maximize long-term value as demand evolves. Now I'd like to take a step back and put this strategy in context. Jensen Huang said something on NVIDIA's earnings call last night that captures exactly what we are building toward. He said simply, compute equals revenues. His point was that in this new AI economy, the ability to generate tokens to run inference is the direct input to revenue growth for every enterprise and hyperscale customer in the world. That compute requires power. Power is the scarce input, and that is precisely what MARA controls. Our sites were originally developed to mine Bitcoin efficiently, but they were built around power. As we continue this transition and as demand for AI and HPC at our sites accelerates, the economics of our sites will increasingly reflect long-term infrastructure characteristics. When a site supports contracted AI or HPC workloads, the underlying drivers of value shift. Cash flows become longer duration and more predictable. Execution risk is reduced, and the operating profile increasingly resembles infrastructure rather than pure compute. We believe the same underlying assets can support different economic outcomes depending on how they are deployed. That is why optionality matters. Bitcoin mining allows us to monetize power immediately and flexibly while AI and HPC workloads, when demand supports them, monetize that same power through longer-term contracts and higher-value use cases. Our responsibility is to allocate capital where the return profile justifies conversion and to manage our sites in a way that maximizes long-term value across market cycles. This quarter, we've also advanced our strategy in other important ways. We increased our Nebraska footprint through the recent acquisition of a 42-megawatt data center adjacent to an existing site, expanding the campus by approximately 40%. With below-market power rates, this lowers our average cost to mine while strengthening operational efficiency. That same site also provides option value for AI and HPC workloads over time. Lastly, we doubled our NGON gas-to-power operations from 25 megawatts to 50 megawatts converting previously flared gas into some of our lowest-cost mining power. Given the recent decline in Bitcoin price and considering the potentially accretive impact of the Starwood joint venture, we are adopting a capital allocation priority to focus on the highest-value near-term opportunities. While we are continuing to advance discussions with MPLX regarding development of integrated power and data campuses in West Texas, this is a longer-term project with significant capital expenses. The scope under consideration has evolved from the initial letter of intent, and we remain engaged in evaluating a transaction structure that aligns with our capital allocation priorities. All of this is designed to expand margins and be accretive to NOI over time. Now Bitcoin remains a core pillar of our strategy. Despite a pronounced sell-off and continued volatility, we increased energized hashrate from 53.2 exahash to 66.4 exahash during 2025. We deliberately chose not to pursue projects that failed to meet our return thresholds. Capital discipline remains central. Historically, we retained the majority of the Bitcoin we mined as long-term strategic assets. Beginning in the second half of 2025, we began selectively monetizing Bitcoin to support operations. Given recent weakness and volatility in Bitcoin price, which have impacted both sector sentiment and elements of our trading performance, we believe maintaining financial flexibility is particularly important. Looking ahead, we expect to continue taking an opportunistic approach using Bitcoin to enhance financial flexibility where appropriate. As always, these decisions will be guided by market conditions and our capital allocation priorities with a clear focus on strengthening the balance sheet and enhancing long-term shareholder value. While the timing of a recovery in Bitcoin prices is difficult to predict, our long-term conviction in the asset class remains unchanged. Let me close with this. MARA is no longer simply a Bitcoin miner. We are already well down the path of building an energy-dominant digital infrastructure platform. Starwood accelerates hyperscale development. Exaion strengthens our enterprise AI layer. Digital infrastructure and Bitcoin mining provide the economic engine, and power ownership provides a strategic advantage. Every decision we make is guided by one principle: maximize the long-term value of every megawatt we control. We believe this strategy positions MARA to deliver durable, compounding shareholder returns. I'll now turn it over to Salman to discuss Q4 financials.

Thank you, Fred. I want to start by emphasizing the strategic and financial importance of our partnership with Starwood Digital Ventures, a leading company in data center development and operations. Financially, we anticipate this joint venture will produce significant net operating income and free cash flow over time, reducing earnings fluctuations compared to a traditional Bitcoin mining model. Teaming up with Starwood also improves our access to institutional investment-grade capital, as we collaboratively develop and finance large-scale AI and HPC infrastructure within our power-advantaged portfolio. With the potential to allocate over 2.5 gigawatts to AI and HPC in the future, we believe this partnership will substantially enhance MARA's long-term net operating income profile, cash flow predictability, and overall business valuation. Additionally, we are pleased to have acquired a majority stake in Exaion, which we expect will diversify our revenue as it grows in sovereign cloud and enterprise AI compute services. These initiatives reflect our strategy to expand free cash flow generation and enhance long-term returns for our shareholders. During the quarter, Bitcoin price volatility was a significant factor in the market. Bitcoin started the period at about $111,000 and reached a new high near $125,000 in early October. However, a sudden liquidation event, combined with negative market sentiment, caused prices to drop to around $87,000 by the end of the quarter. This nearly $40,000 fluctuation created one of the most challenging macro environments we've experienced lately and was a considerable obstacle to our financial performance. Amid this decline in Bitcoin prices, the global hashrate saw a slight increase as miners remained cautious in expanding their capacity due to the volatility. Now, allow me to highlight our key financial results and operational accomplishments, which are still highly sensitive to Bitcoin price fluctuations and the total network hashrate that impacts our Bitcoin mining volume. For instance, each $10,000 change in Bitcoin's price leads to about a $538 million impact on our Bitcoin holdings' value. In the fourth quarter, our revenues totaled $202.3 million, down from $214.4 million in the same quarter of 2024. For 2025, revenues increased 38% to $907.1 million, up from $656.4 million in 2024. Even though Bitcoin's average price rose 15% year-over-year, contributing $24.8 million to our 2025 results, our production volumes were lower for the year. We mined an average of 21.9 Bitcoin per day in Q4 compared to 27.1 Bitcoin in Q4 2024, resulting in about 481 fewer Bitcoin mined this quarter. Q4 exhibited outstanding operational performance at our main mining sites, with several operating at or near 100% uptime. The reduction in production was mainly due to the higher network difficulty level caused by an increased overall network hashrate. While we had opportunities to expand our exahash capacity aggressively, we opted for a disciplined and measured approach, given the broader market uncertainty. Despite the increasingly competitive environment, our compute capacity and Bitcoin holdings continued to grow. Between Q4 2024 and Q4 2025, our Bitcoin holdings rose over 20%, from approximately 44,000 to nearly 54,000 Bitcoin. During the same period, our energized hashrate grew by 25%, increasing from 53.2 exahash to 66.4 exahash. Last quarter, we reported a net loss of $1.7 billion, or $4.52 negative per diluted share, compared to net income of $528.3 million, or $1.24 per diluted share, in Q4 2024. This net loss in Q4 2025 was attributed to the decline in Bitcoin prices, including a $1.5 billion loss reflecting the change in fair value of our digital assets, including Bitcoin receivable. For the entire year, we recorded a net loss of $1.3 billion, compared to net income of $541 million in the same period last year. We also recognized a non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $82.8 million following our annual review, which was entirely non-cash and did not affect our liquidity, operating performance, or cash flows. On the cost front, our cost per kilowatt hour at our own sites was $0.04 in 2025. Our purchased energy cost per Bitcoin for the quarter was $48,611, compared to $31,608 in Q4 2024. Notably, our daily cost per petahash improved by 4% year-over-year to $30.5 from $31.7 in the fourth quarter of the previous year, showing a 36% improvement over the past 11 quarters and remaining among the lowest in the sector. MARA is one of the largest public corporate holders of Bitcoin, and we actively generate returns on our holdings. The Bitcoin on our balance sheet strengthens our debt profile, enhances our resilience, and provides flexibility to pursue disciplined growth opportunities when they arise. It's essential to note that we are not a digital asset treasury company; MARA is an operating company rather than a passive vehicle for a Bitcoin balance sheet. During the quarter, we mined 2,011 Bitcoin and purchased an additional 1,670 as part of our trading strategy. As part of our digital asset management strategy, we aim to deploy Bitcoin holdings through risk-optimized trading initiatives, lending arrangements, and collateralized borrowings under credit facilities. As of December 31, 2025, we held a total of 53,822 Bitcoin, an increase of 8,929 from the previous year. Of this total, 15,315 Bitcoin were loaned, actively managed, or pledged as collateral, with 9,377 Bitcoin loaned to counterparties generating approximately $32.1 million in interest income during the year. We also pledged 5,938 Bitcoin for financing purposes, thereby supporting liquidity while minimizing dilution. Overall, about 28% of our total holdings were activated through our digital asset management strategy by year-end. Now, turning to our balance sheet, I want to discuss our debt maturity profile. We have $925 million notes maturing in 2031 and $1 billion notes maturing in 2030, both with put rights exercisable in mid-2027. These obligations represent a significant cash responsibility that we are planning for proactively. I want to clarify how we view these obligations. First, our Bitcoin holdings at market value approximately double these puts. Second, the zero coupon nature of most of our notes means we do not face substantial ongoing cash interest burdens that could deplete our liquidity until those put dates. Third, we have a history of sound balance sheet management with our previous convertible securities. The roadmap we are establishing through the Starwood joint venture and our infrastructure transition is specifically designed to create contracted cash flows that diversify our liquidity sources beyond Bitcoin alone. We are managing this balance sheet with full foresight regarding every upcoming obligation. Historically, we held produced Bitcoin as a long-term investment, but in the latter half of 2025, we began to sell Bitcoin to support operations. In 2026, we plan to continue to opportunistically monetize Bitcoin to enhance our financial flexibility, which may include liquidity provision or funding capital projects that we believe will yield long-term shareholder value, depending on market conditions and our capital allocation priorities. In light of the more volatile pricing landscape, we decided to suspend the use of our ATM program at the end of Q3 last year and instead funded operations through sales from our mined Bitcoin. Notably, Q4 was the first quarter since 2022 that we did not use our ATM program. By shifting to operational funding through Bitcoin sales from production, we have improved our near-term cash flow while maintaining a disciplined and adaptable balance sheet strategy. Now, I will turn it over to the operator for questions.

The first question comes from Paul Golding with Macquarie Capital.

Congratulations on the partnership announcement. Fred, you mentioned that this partnership allows you to maintain a 50% stake in these projects. Can you elaborate on the financing aspects of that 50%? Is there a possibility to contribute the powered site in exchange for other considerations outside of the joint venture? Additionally, you mentioned load balancing between mining and HPC at certain sites in this partnership. Could you explain the technical requirements for that and how we should view mining versus HPC as you move forward with this partnership?

Sure. So thank you for your question. When you look at the JV structure, essentially, our initial contribution to the JV for each specific site would be the asset itself. And additionally, we would capitalize our share of the development costs, where we could retain up to 50% of the JV. And hopefully, that clarifies that part of it. There are mechanisms within the agreement that allow us to essentially decide not to fund our portion, and there are methods that allow us to essentially be liquidated, if you would, at attractive prices or options if we don't fulfill our obligations and we decide to drop out, if you would. The key thing regarding load balancing is a combination of technologies that we've developed by leveraging special battery technology. We've announced previously a partnership with TAE Batteries, which is advanced battery technology that can switch at sub-millisecond rates such that we are able to essentially balance load within data centers. If you think about the data center development project, our ability to retain Bitcoin mining at the site while the project is being developed and then even retain a portion of the power at the option of the tenant allows us to act as a load balancer. Depending on the type of compute load that's executed at the site, there may be, for example in the case of inference loads, a variation in that load over the course of a 24-hour period or even over a period of a week, where the inference demands on that site may decrease at night, for example, or over weekends. Having Bitcoin mining at the site allows us to, again, based on the arrangement with the tenant, mine whenever power is available that isn't being used at preferential prices. Hopefully, that answers your question.

It does. And maybe just as a quick follow-up. At those sites, would the partnership then benefit from any revenue generated from the Bitcoin mining that happens when the load balancing is occurring? Or is that something that would be retained entirely by MARA?

Yes, it's primarily by MARA.

Our next question comes from the line of Reginald Smith with JPMorgan.

Congrats on the announcement as well. I guess you guys are the last major Bitcoin miner to make the switch, so I guess, welcome to the party. A question, you mentioned Starwood and the fact that having a partner, you're not going at it alone. And obviously, we've seen other Bitcoin miners sign deals. So my question is should we expect the time to sign a deal to be shorter? Because you have Starwood along with you, does that alleviate some of the risk and maybe collapse the timeline? And then I have one follow-up.

Yes, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, this relationship has been developing for quite some time and is not just initiated by signing the agreement. We have actively engaged with potential tenants and submitted permits for some sites. Our collaboration with Starwood is multifaceted. They have established relationships of trust with tenants, having built and operated facilities for three of the four major hyperscalers. This trust significantly shortens the onboarding process for newcomers like us. Consequently, it enables Starwood and potential tenants to move quickly through evaluating sites, submitting permits, and finalizing leases compared to if we were to tackle it independently. Additionally, Starwood’s expertise in engineering, procurement, and construction greatly enhances our ability to efficiently build and execute projects. The primary challenge for hyperscalers today is ensuring reliable power availability, which Bitcoin miners offer by actively consuming that power. One of our strategic advantages is our ongoing containerized inference operations at one of our sites. If a tenant prefers a modular approach over traditional building methods for large facilities, particularly for inference applications, it's worth noting that industry experts highlight the importance of inference in generating revenue from AI and its critical role in AI deployments today. We anticipate significant advancements in how these sites are designed and constructed, aligning well with our previous experience in this field.

That makes sense. We've historically told clients and investors to think 9 to 12 months for a deal to sign, but it sounds like you guys are on an accelerated timeline. And second question, it sounds like you're putting the MPLX deal on the back burner for now. My question is, are you still in the market for sites that are already powered or have been approved? Is that something that would also be more of a longer-term investment? Or how do we view those types of opportunities? So, a site in some other city in Texas, would that be something that you may pursue now? Or is that also something that would be viewed as less immediate and probably on the back burner?

No. So you have to look at what the market needs today. If we're talking about power that will be available after 2030, there's not an aggressive demand for that capacity. The hyperscalers themselves have many efforts around developing sites, building their own energy generation for that time period. That is 4-plus years out from now. What they desperately need now is power that's available today where they can quickly get a site permitted, built, and deployed as quickly as possible. So we're prioritizing the ability to deploy capital where we can most readily convert it into those types of opportunities. So yes, we are still pursuing sites both domestically and internationally. As we mentioned in our prepared remarks, we have spent a lot of time working with large French energy majors who are global leaders in energy, especially in the U.S., Latin America, and the Middle East. We're actively engaged to develop sites over time with those partners in regions of the world where we believe it will be attractive to develop sites that have the ability to be used maybe initially for Bitcoin mining and then converted over time into HPC, AI, or other enterprise workloads.

Perfect. Sounds great. Congrats, guys.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Greg Lewis with BTIG.

Fred, I wanted to mention that you've indicated this has been a continuous effort and we've been progressing towards it for some time. I understand that. However, there may still be some work needed before we finalize things. Looking at your portfolio, you have a solid presence in Texas and Ohio, as well as other areas in the central United States. Are there any specific regions that are attracting more attention as you and Starwood prepare to bring on your first customer?

I think typically, what tenants are looking for is, as I said earlier, the power's turned on. It's easy and fast to build, and there's access to Internet, and if there's a need for water. A number of our sites fit that profile, obviously. If you look at other locations across the country, it's a question of really triangulating high-speed Internet, always-on power, and access to water. And all of our peers, ourselves, the neocloud providers, and many others are all chasing opportunities around the country. Our focus is to initially monetize the sites that we have because the power is already on, and we don't have to do any further building to convert those sites. There may be upgrades to substations and things that have to happen before somebody comes in and starts converting the site, building buildings, or other required work. But the fact is, the power is the key requirement.

Super helpful. And then just realizing I'm probably not as familiar with Starwood Digital Ventures as I'm probably going to become. But I'm curious, clearly, they have a presence already in Europe with data centers. You mentioned some of the things you're looking to do. As we think about this relationship going forward, could this be an opportunity for kind of clearly where Marathon already has owned infrastructure? That's an easy lift for getting MARA involved in some of these projects? But as we think about the next, I don't know, maybe not the next 12 months, but the next 3, 4, 5 years, do you see an opportunity for MARA to kind of build with Starwood beyond just what you have as your owned infrastructure?

If you mean by our existing infrastructure, absolutely.

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Brendler with Rosenblatt.

Congratulations on the progress. I have a follow-up to Greg's question regarding the portfolio of data centers and their locations. I noticed a comment in the presentation indicating that you have a gig of critical IT available today, which seems to include some of the sites where you're currently in hosting mode. Could you clarify whether you think there's a potential to either acquire or operate AI data center workloads at these other sites where you have hosting arrangements, or am I misunderstanding?

Yes. I think good question, Chris. I think you have to also not look at those hosted sites so much. While we operate a certain amount of load at existing sites, there is additional capacity available for expansion readily at hand. With some of these sites, the substations, for example, are ready for expansion. Additional load can be made available, and the nameplate capacity of the sites, in a number of cases, is greater than that which we operate today.

Makes sense. My follow-up question is that there weren't many numbers in this relationship presentation, and it's obviously a significant change and an exciting development. I'm curious about the project sizes you're considering. It seems you’re not looking at 200-, 300-, or 400-megawatt sites like some competitors. It appears it will be on a smaller scale, and there have already been questions about the timeline. I'm pondering the numerical impact. What do you anticipate, depending on your ownership? What would the economics of this joint venture look like compared to current Bitcoin mining operations at today's prices?

I'm not going to go into the economics today. I think more information about that will become more evident as we actually start speaking more about the specific sites and specific tenants because, obviously, who the tenant is and the economics will vary because of that. But to your question on size and scaling, you could look at a site, for example, like one we have in Texas, which currently operates over 200 megawatts of capacity, and that site can be converted directly to a hyperscaler site. So are we looking at doing 40- and 50-megawatt sites? No, we're looking at doing much bigger things.

Okay. Great. Are you planning to provide more information as you make progress? Will we need to wait for contracts to be signed, or will you disclose more details before then?

So think of it this way. You have to look at this almost like a real estate development project. It all depends on who the tenant is, what has to get built, what the economics of the development costs are going to be, and what percentage of the joint venture we're going to have with that specific project. Again, we will retain up to 50% of projects or ownership in projects. And then you have to look at what the lease rate is going to be. So every project will be different, so it's a little hard today to say, 'Well, here's the number.'

Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Dede with H.C. Wainwright.

Fred, could you offer a little color or deeper color maybe on timelines on these project enhancements with Starwood? I mean when do you think shovels start hitting the ground? And when do you think they might actually start running for customers?

You typically don’t start construction until you have a signed tenant because that tenant has specific needs for the site. We are not building on speculation like some of our peers. Instead, we plan to create a powered shell, which we can either fill with someone's equipment or leave open to see who may be interested. Starwood has experience working with top-tier hyperscalers and understands their requirements. A tenant assesses a site to determine its potential, collaborating with Starwood to design, permit, and build it, rather than constructing on hope as some others do. We are focused on quick execution with high confidence. One reason we chose Starwood is their ability to significantly enhance execution certainty by partnering with someone who has the necessary relationships in the hyperscaler sector and possesses in-house EPC capabilities, ensuring projects are funded and constructed. A significant indicator will be when we have signed a lease with a tenant, which will trigger timelines for permit approvals and starting construction. We have already had advanced discussions with tenants, and permits have been applied for at various sites. We anticipate this process will move quickly, and we expect to provide updates on leases sooner than most would anticipate.

Would you mind taking a minute or two to sort through Exaion? It's not absolutely clear exactly how MARA intends to leverage that. I did a little digging. I understand it operates under MARA France, and I think you have 3 Board seats of the 8. I'm scratched my head about how you intend to leverage that deal.

Okay. So Exaion was developed within EDF, which is a French state-owned energy company that operates one of the largest fleets of nuclear reactors in the world, as well as huge renewables. I believe they're one of the largest electric energy producers in the world. Certainly the greenest, with about 70% plus of their energy generation being green between hydroelectric capacity, other renewables, and nuclear. France, especially EDF, has huge needs for AI. They have very large needs around private cloud because if you're operating nuclear reactors and you have a plethora of data coming off them and you're running AI models to ensure that they're operating not just safely but optimizing how they're running, they did not want that as an outsourced service to a third-party provider. They built that competency in-house. There came a point, though, where they believed it was better to take on external capital to advance the funding of that team and take what that team had built. Exaion is, I think, today about 90 people. They have built infrastructure, tech stacks, and systems and services to operate the data centers on behalf of EDF. They also operate a quantum computer in their Montreal facility, for example. They're a team of engineers and technicians, operators, if you would. Our investment in Exaion, which we now own 64% of, is focused on being able to leverage the Infrastructure-as-a-Service technology, the platforms, and service technologies they have developed and deploy that in data centers around the world. One thing you have to realize is, geopolitically, we live in a multipolar world. Gone are the days when U.S. companies could dominate the data center operations around the world. Countries do not necessarily want U.S. hyperscalers subject to the CLOUD Act to operate in their countries where their sensitive data may be subject to U.S. government control. This is especially true in Europe. Our investment in Exaion is specifically targeted at two things: one, getting the technology platform so we can deploy highly sophisticated private cloud with full security and data integrity globally in data centers for enterprise customers as well as within France and across Europe. We believe that will be an advantage there as well as in other countries around the world. One use for our smaller data centers is specifically as private cloud operations. The majority of corporate data today resides not in the public cloud but in private cloud or behind the firewalls of the corporations. Financial services companies, health care companies, drug research companies, defense industries, and other strategic industries do not put their data in the public cloud. People put email and other general-purpose data, but they do not put their core operating data into the public cloud. Running AI requires it to be in the private cloud. We have spent time leveraging one of our key Board members, Janet George, who today runs a large part of AI efforts at Mastercard and previously did so at Intel and Oracle. We've spent time understanding the needs of enterprises not just in the U.S. but internationally and where their key pain points are. The majority of the inference being done by hyperscalers is improving their own search products, product selection and recommendation engines, and tools for selling to customers and improving their advertising basis, Google, for example. What you're starting to see now is corporations wanting to deploy vertical AI solutions, such as production optimization and fraud detection, all of which they're going to run behind their firewalls or in full private cloud. Companies running that are going to need infrastructure, and the infrastructure they require must have the ability to be fully secured, be fully private cloud, and ensure the owner of the data has full control regardless of who operates the data center. These are the core technologies that Exaion brings us, and we're super excited about this because it allows us to differentiate ourselves from people offering basic services to neoclouds or even neoclouds themselves since it's a more sophisticated infrastructure that generates much more value per megawatt, which again is our core metric and is much stickier.

You will be able to take that technology to regions beyond Europe.

Yes. We have majority control of Exaion. Regarding the Board seats, there are 8 members, 3 from EDF. One seat is occupied by the CEO of Exaion. We hold 3 seats, and a French technology entrepreneur, Xavier Niel, holds 1 seat. We are excited to have him on board due to his impressive background. You can look into his credentials further. He personally invested in MARA France, which is our holding company that owns Exaion.

There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to pass the call back over to Robert for any closing remarks.

Thanks, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. If you do have any questions that were not answered during today's call, please feel free to contact our Investor Relations team at ir.mara.com. Thanks very much, and enjoy the rest of the day.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.