MARA Stock Surges 17% on AI Data Center Deal with Starwood Energy Group

Shares of Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) soared 17% following the announcement of a strategic joint venture with Starwood Energy Group. The partnership aims to develop a new, high-performance computing (HPC) data center campus in Texas, initially focused on Bitcoin mining with a planned pivot to artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. This move is seen as a strategic diversification for Marathon, leveraging its energy infrastructure expertise to tap into the rapidly growing AI sector. The market reacted positively to the news, interpreting the deal as a forward-looking step to capitalize on the booming demand for AI computing power and data center capacity.