Auradine Secures $153 Million for Bitcoin Mining and AI Networking Hardware Development

Auradine Inc., a startup focused on data center hardware, has announced it has successfully raised $153 million in a Series C funding round.

The funding round was led by StepStone Group, with contributions from Samsung Catalyst Fund, Qualcomm Ventures, and several other investors. With this latest round, Auradine’s total external funding now exceeds $300 million. The company also revealed that its hardware is currently utilized in the data centers of over 40 bitcoin mining firms.

“Both bitcoin and AI transform energy into economic value and require highly energy-efficient, scalable, and flexible infrastructure solutions,” stated Rajiv Khemani, co-founder and CEO.

Based in Santa Clara, California, Auradine specializes in servers tailored for bitcoin mining. Bitcoin mines generate cryptocurrency by executing numerous hashing operations, which convert a data piece into a different, generally smaller, representation. Auradine’s servers come equipped with custom processors designed specifically for hashing tasks.

The company’s hardware includes a variety of servers. Some rely on conventional fans to manage the heat produced during mining, while others employ immersion cooling technology, wherein a server’s components are submerged in non-conductive liquids that effectively dissipate heat.

Recently, Auradine unveiled the AH3880 system, which incorporates water cooling – a method that is notably more efficient than both immersion cooling and traditional fans. In this system, water cools cold plates that subsequently remove heat from the motherboard without coming into direct contact with electronic components.

The AH3880 features a custom chip manufactured using a three-nanometer process and is capable of handling up to 600 trillion hashing operations per second. The onboard firmware monitors the system’s temperature, reducing performance to maintain optimal operating temperatures when overheating is detected.

Additionally, the EnergyTune software feature minimizes the impact of bitcoin mines on the local electricity grids. This technology can automatically reduce the AH3880’s power consumption during periods of high demand from other utility customers, and once demand normalizes, it enhances hashing performance. Auradine claims this technology reduces the need for frequent reboots that competing software often requires.

In addition to its hardware, Auradine is also focusing on the data center networking sector. To mark this funding achievement, it has launched a new business unit, AuraLinks AI, to spearhead its initiatives in this area. This unit comprises former employees from companies like Cisco Systems Inc., Juniper Networks Inc., and Broadcom Inc., a leading networking chip supplier.

Auradine is working on networking hardware designed to connect graphics cards into computing clusters. The company claims this equipment, powered by a custom chip, will deliver performance improvements of up to five times compared to previous hardware. Auradine intends to utilize UAL and Ultra Ethernet Link, two open-source standards optimized for AI clusters.

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