Galaxy secures $1.4B loan to fast-track Texas Helios AI datacenter

Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital closed a $1.4 billion secured term loan facility to accelerate the development of its Helios artificial intelligence datacenter campus in Texas. 

On Friday, the company announced that the loan will cover roughly 80% of the construction costs for the first phase of the project, with Galaxy Digital contributing $350 million in equity. According to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the loan is secured by all assets of Galaxy Helios I, a subsidiary of Galaxy Digital, and it matures on Aug. 15, 2028. 

The capital will fund the expansion of the Helios AI datacenter to deliver power for AI workloads under a long-term agreement with the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) cloud provider CoreWeave starting early 2026. 

The move highlights how digital asset firms leverage their capital-raising capabilities and repurpose infrastructure to tap into the increasing AI compute demand. This suggests that the broader compute and digital assets infrastructures may be converging. 

Galaxy Digital expects $1 billion in annual revenue from its CoreWeave deal

Galaxy also announced that the AI services provider CoreWeave brought its total commitment to a full 800 megawatts of approved capacity at the Helios campus. This means that CoreWeave is leasing power, cooling and physical infrastructure for its AI and high-performance computing (HPC) operations. 

Galaxy Digital said that it expects an annual revenue of over $1 billion from its CoreWeave deal, which has a 15-year term. If it goes as planned, the company will earn an estimated $15 billion in total revenue from its contract with CoreWeave. 

The company said it expects the Helios datacenter to have a power capacity of 3.5 gigawatts at full buildout. Minus its deal with CoreWeave, the data center will have an extra 2.7 gigawatts to provide to its clients, potentially earning more. 

Crypto firms dive into AI

Galaxy Digital’s move into AI is part of a broader trend among crypto-native firms seeking new growth avenues as institutional capital goes to AI. 

CoreWeave, originally a crypto mining company, announced on July 7 that it acquired the miner Core Scientific in a $9 billion all-stock transaction to expand its data center capacity to support its AI and HPC workloads.

Meanwhile, the Helios data center was also originally acquired for Bitcoin mining initiatives. In 2022, Mike Novogratz said that its Helios acquisition was done to increase its exposure to Bitcoin mining.