Core Scientific Adds Former Equinix CEO to Board as AI Buildout Scales
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Key Takeaways
- Steve Smith, current CEO of Zayo Group and former CEO of Equinix, has joined Core Scientific’s Board of Directors.
- The appointment is intended to bolster the company’s expertise as it scales its high-density colocation business and AI infrastructure build-outs.
Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ) appointed former Equinix Chief Executive Officer Steve Smith to its board, adding a veteran data center executive as the company tries to scale one of the largest AI infrastructure buildouts among former Bitcoin miners.
Smith, who has led fiber network operator Zayo Group since 2020, will join Core Scientific’s board immediately and serve on its nominating and corporate governance committee, the Austin-based company said Tuesday. He previously served as president and CEO of Equinix from 2007 to 2018, a period when the data center operator grew annual revenue from about $400 million to more than $4 billion and integrated more than 20 acquisitions, according to Core Scientific.
The appointment gives Core Scientific another board member with deep experience in commercial data center operations, connectivity infrastructure and large-scale customer relationships. Those areas have become more central to the company as it shifts from its legacy Bitcoin mining business toward high-density colocation, a model designed to host AI and high-performance computing workloads.
Core Scientific CEO Adam Sullivan said Smith’s experience would be valuable as the company executes what he described as one of the market’s largest multi-site AI infrastructure buildouts. Smith said Core Scientific is positioned to benefit from rising demand for high-performance compute infrastructure.
