A shoe company has taken $50 million to pivot to, of all things, GPU-powered AI infrastructure

Allbirds, an [ex] shoe company with an environmental focus that has been around for over a decade now, has announced the sale of the brand and a pivot to AI. This includes a $50 million investment from "an institutional investor" into a facility which is expected to serve the company's goals.

As detailed in its latest press release (via Wall Street Rollup), it plans on becoming a "fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) and AI-native cloud solutions provider."

In connection with this pivot, the company anticipates changing its name to "NewBird AI."

This means that NewBird AI, if successful, would be renting out access to high-performance GPUs via the cloud. Traditionally, services like this are used for AI training, rendering, and simulation. If a company cannot afford/doesn't have the space for cutting-edge GPU technology, a company like NewBird AI might step in.

AI is famously a very expensive venture right now, and also a very profitable one. Nvidia, one of the biggest proponents of the AI wave, is the most valuable company in the world, with a market cap of just under $5 trillion at the time of writing. However, it's not clear whether $50 million will be sufficient to give NewBird AI enough AI compute to be profitable. It's not just about whether or not it can buy space, or afford GPUs / servers on paper, but if its funds and market connections will beat out all the other companies clamouring for the same resources.

The memory crisis is currently being caused by a surge of companies looking to get access to all the tech necessary to run AI, and more contenders weighing in means less memory for the rest of us.

NewBird AI's current plan is subject to a stockholder meeting on May 18. If all goes to plan, NewBird AI will use its capital to loan, under long-term lease arrangements, "high-performance GPU assets, which will be deployed to serve customers requiring dedicated access to AI compute capacity."

Think of it like renting out your house from a landlord, to then rent out individual rooms to other tenants. This can lead to stock insecurity at the end of those lease agreements, but it also means NewBird AI can rent out more GPUs than it could buy, and it will be left holding less of the bag, should the tech's price drop.

AI is a big buzzword for stock value right now. The company went public in 2021, but its share value has been on a steady decline, going from a peak of over $1,000 per share in 2021 to around $2 per share just this week. However, the announcement of this AI pivot has caused the stock price to increase by almost 10 times its value, sitting at just under $20 per share right now.

Whether or not pivoting to AI is the right call for NewBird AI is anyone's guess, but shareholders certainly do seem to love the technology right now, and the now former shoe company is likely basking in the glow of that stock injection.

Unfortunately, though, even more companies tying up their value in AI does suggest the bubble will be even larger before/if it eventually pops, and they will eat up more and more of our oh-so-delicious memory until it does.