Bitcoin Firm Empery Digital Pivots Toward AI Infrastructure With $20M Cardinal Data Power Investment

Strategic Redeployment Into AI Infrastructure

Empery Digital, according to company filings reported by Cointelegraph, has redirected $20 million of capital into Cardinal Data Power, acquiring an approximately 8% stake in the powered data center developer. The investment formed part of Cardinal’s Series A financing round, which raised approximately $70 million in total capital. The deployment marks a significant departure from Empery’s corporate Bitcoin treasury strategy, which the company adopted in mid-2025.

Cardinal Data Power will apply the funding toward construction of a 750-megawatt data center campus in West Texas, with operations expected to commence in 2027. The facility is projected to scale to approximately 1 gigawatt capacity by 2029 and eventually surpass 5 gigawatts. The company develops integrated data center environments tailored to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads, combining onsite power generation, energy arrangements, and electrical systems to enable rapid deployment of computing infrastructure.

Shareholder Pressure Forces Treasury Recalibration

Empery Digital’s strategic pivot comes amid mounting shareholder opposition to its Bitcoin treasury model. Activist investor Tice P. Brown publicly challenged the company’s direction and sought replacement of company leadership, creating pressure for management to explore alternative deployment strategies. In response, Empery disclosed sales of approximately 1,400 Bitcoin over a two-month period, generating roughly $87.1 million in proceeds directed toward AI infrastructure projects and debt reduction. These transactions reduced the company’s Bitcoin holdings to 1,514 BTC, compared with a peak position of approximately 4,081 BTC prior to reductions that commenced in March.

Fragmentation in Corporate Bitcoin Strategy

Empery’s repositioning reflects increasingly divergent approaches among firms that embraced corporate Bitcoin holdings. Satsuma Technology became one of the first such companies to fully unwind its position when shareholders voted on July 20 to liquidate Bitcoin reserves and distribute substantially all capital to investors, with over 90% of votes supporting both a capital return and delisting from the London Stock Exchange.

Other entities maintain substantial Bitcoin positions. Twenty One Capital, backed by Tether, currently holds 43,514 Bitcoin, making it the second-largest corporate Bitcoin holder among publicly tracked positions. A proposed combination of Twenty One Capital, Strike, and Bitcoin miner Elektron Energy dissolved this week, though discussions between Twenty One and Elektron persist. Separately, Bitcoin analyst Lyn Alden co-founded Orange Juice HODLINGS in partnership with Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas, launching with $40 million in initial capital. Rather than pursuing pure Bitcoin accumulation, the firm intends to acquire and operate profitable businesses indefinitely while maintaining Bitcoin as its treasury reserve asset.

As institutional crypto capital increasingly flows toward infrastructure supporting artificial intelligence and computing rather than pure asset accumulation, the sector is demonstrating a maturation toward concrete economic applications.

Source: Empery Digital, via Cointelegraph. Not financial advice.