Riot Platforms (RIOT) has made a significant step by appointing Jonathan Gibbs as its Chief Data Center Officer, a move that signifies the bitcoin miner’s intention to expand its operations beyond cryptocurrency into the wider data infrastructure sector.

Gibbs arrives with over 15 years in the field, having overseen the construction of more than one gigawatt of data center capacity across various regions, including North America, Europe, and Asia. Prior to joining Riot, he was the Executive Vice President at Prime Data Centers, leading multiple initiatives across the United States.

Currently, Gibbs has the task of launching Riot’s new data center platform tailored for firms that need substantial computing resources to enhance cloud offerings and artificial intelligence capabilities. The company already has 1.7 gigawatts of power capacity under control, which will support the establishment of facilities not focused on bitcoin mining.

According to Riot’s CEO, Jason Les, this initiative is set to ‘aggressively scale’ to cater to the increasing demand. If successful, Riot may find itself among a growing number of past mining entities pivoting to become vital players in the burgeoning AI and cloud services market.