An education software firm is looking to pivot into data center development and AI compute. The company has partnered with a mobile services company that is in the midst of its own pivot to data centers and a behind-the-meter power provider for a project in Canada.

A Genius move

NYSE-listed Genius Group this month announced plans to launch GENIUSpark, a “ community-first AI power company.”

The new wholly owned subsidiary will build, own, and operate AI data centers together with the communities that host them, through joint ventures with AI companies, data center operators, and power partners.

GENIUSpark is targeting an initial 100MW of AI compute, representing a target of $1 billion of annual revenue under its intended model, and a long-term goal of 1GW globally.

The company is focused on launching GENIUSpark in countries that have “low cost, accessible power together with high market demand and government support,” initially focusing on with Canada, Australia, and Indonesia.

Roger James Hamilton, founder and CEO of Genius Group, said: "We believe community empowerment is solved with our GENIUSpark model of local reskilling, education and a local AI treasury that makes every community member a stakeholder. GENIUSpark is the community solution for the AI revolution: every site we build trains local students and workers for the jobs AI creates, and returns 10 percent of its profits to the town that hosts it. We are building GENIUSpark to be the partner of choice for AI companies and data center operators that want to grow with the support of the communities they serve."

The company said its GENIUSpark sites aim to combine low-cost power and powered land, offering colocation, compute, and inference capacity to enterprise, platform and education customers. Each project will also include local skills programs and donations to a local community fund.

Its sites will be sized at up to 9.9MW. The company said these sites will be small enough to be approved and powered in months rather than years, and large enough to potentially generate more than $100 million in annual revenue.

Suraj Naik, head of AI at Genius Group, added: "AI is moving from training to inference, and inference needs to run close to the people and businesses that use it. Data residency rules and the need for low latency are pushing compute out of a handful of mega campuses and into local sites. That is where GENIUSpark is built: smaller, faster to power, closer to users, and run with the communities around them. Our own Genius OS platform will be one of the first customers on GENIUSpark compute."

Genius comes to Alberta

In a subsequent announcement, Genius announced it was partnering with FingerMotion and BlueFlare to develop a project in Canada. The group aims to develop a 2.4MW data center project on a 20-acre site in Hanna, Alberta.

For the Alberta project, Genius Group will hold a 49 percent stake in the joint venture, with FingerMotion holding 51 percent of the initial issued share capital. The first 3MW of grid-connected capacity will power some 432 GPU servers, with the option to add up to 3MW of BlueFlare’s behind-the-meter natural gas generation.

Construction is planned to begin in December 2026, with first compute targeted for the second quarter of 2027.

Gebius CEO Hamilton said: "FingerMotion and BlueFlare have the power, site-development and construction capability. Genius Group has the community reskilling and treasury model that directly benefits the local community."

Chinese mobile services firm FingerMotion announced a pivot to AI data centers over the summer, signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with BlueFlare Energy Solutions to convert a 600kW gas-powered behind-the-meter cryptomine facility in Alberta to an AI inference site.

Jolie Kahn, CEO of FingerMotion, added: "GENIUSpark Alberta takes FingerMotion beyond powered land into owning the compute that runs on it. With BlueFlare’s and FingerMotion’s power and infrastructure and Genius Group’s community model, Hanna is the first step in what we believe can become one of Alberta’s leading high-performance computing platforms."

With roots going back to 2002 and going public in 2022, Genius Group is a global education group delivering AI-powered education solutions. The company says its Edtech platform has delivered training to more than six million students. The firm also operates physical education centers and has also previously invested in cryptocurrency initiatives.

Genius is far from the only company to attempt a pivot towards data centers and AI infrastructure. Last week, insurance tech firm Reliance Global Group announced plans to purchase an unnamed GPU cloud provider as part of a major change in company direction.

Former shoe company Allbirds is one of the more notable examples of unexpected companies looking to get into the AI data center market, having rebranded as Smartbird. Other examples include a Taiwanese whiskey importer, a recruitment website, a Singaporean healthcare company, an Indian TV production firm, a Chinese car loan financing company, an aviation operator, an owner of Hard Rock Cafe franchises in Malaysia, and an Indonesian eCommerce software firm.