Most investors trying to profit from AI are buying chips, software stocks, or startup equity. Mike Novogratz is buying the buildings that house the computers doing the actual work.
Galaxy Digital’s CEO has made a decisive strategic pivot: rather than betting on which AI company wins the race, he’s building the track. The firm is transforming its Helios campus in West Texas into a large-scale AI data center complex, a project that has already attracted over $1.8B in outside capital and earned an appraisal north of $15B in Galaxy’s 2025 annual report.
From Bitcoin mines to AI factories
Galaxy acquired the Helios site in early 2023 for $65 million, buying it from Argo Blockchain. The 160-acre property in West Texas was originally dedicated to Bitcoin mining.
Galaxy began converting Helios into AI and high-performance computing facilities in 2025. Phase I of the project, carrying a critical IT load of 133 MW, went live around July 7, 2026. ERCOT, the Texas grid operator, has already approved an expansion of total power capacity at the site to 1.6 GW.
In November 2024, Galaxy signed a 15-year lease with CoreWeave, the AI cloud computing company backed by Nvidia, covering the full initial 800 MW of capacity. Once that lease reaches full operational status, Galaxy projects the arrangement will generate more than $1B in annual revenue.
The financing tells the story
Galaxy raised $460 million in October 2025 specifically focused on the Helios transformation, then secured an additional $1.4B in project financing to accelerate development. In total, the company has assembled well over $1.8B in outside capital pointed at a single asset.
The Helios campus was subsequently appraised at more than $15B in Galaxy’s 2025 annual report. That figure represents a striking return on a $65 million land acquisition made just a couple of years prior.
Novogratz has framed Helios explicitly as a cornerstone of Galaxy’s future. The company’s data center business now constitutes a significant portion of Galaxy Digital’s overall valuation, which marks a meaningful shift for a firm that started as a crypto-focused merchant bank and asset manager.
What this means for crypto investors watching Galaxy
Galaxy Digital trades publicly, and the Helios transformation is quietly rewriting the investment thesis for anyone holding the stock. The company is no longer purely a crypto-native firm whose fortunes track Bitcoin price cycles. It is increasingly a hybrid: part digital asset manager, part AI infrastructure operator with a long-term contracted revenue stream.
A 15-year lease with CoreWeave provides the kind of cash flow visibility that gives Galaxy a cushion during crypto bear markets that most of its peers do not have.
For investors, the key risks sit on two fronts. First, AI infrastructure is capital-intensive and the buildout timelines are long. Delays in construction, grid interconnection, or CoreWeave’s own business trajectory could compress projected returns. Second, the $15B appraisal on an asset that cost $65 million only a few years ago deserves scrutiny. Appraisals of novel asset classes sometimes reflect optimistic assumptions about future demand rather than conservative current-market comparables.