QumulusAI has secured a $500 million blockchain-backed facility to fund its AI compute infrastructure buildout.

The funding was arranged by Permian Labs and is set to be distributed via the USD.AI blockchain-based credit protocol.

Permian Labs tokenizes GPUs into warehouse receipt tokens that can be used as collateral.

The debt funding will enable QumulusAI to borrow stablecoins against up to 70 percent of its approved GPU deployments, enabling faster access to capital.

"This partnership represents a paradigm shift in AI infrastructure financing," said Mike Maniscalco, CEO of QumulusAI. "By leveraging Permian Labs' tokenization framework, we can scale faster and more flexibly – meeting the surge in AI compute demand without the constraints of legacy financing.”

"QumulusAI is exactly the type of innovative AI operator we built USD.AI to serve," said Conor Moore, Permian Labs co-founder and COO. "Their integrated approach to AI supercompute - combining HPC cloud, purpose-built data centers, and controlled power generation - fits seamlessly with our tokenized financing model, proving how blockchain can unlock institutional capital for real-world infrastructure."

QumulusAI, founded in 2019, is a GPU cloud company. Details about its data center footprint are sparse.

According to its website, Qumulus uses mostly prefabricated data centers and aims to achieve a PUE of 1.1. It eventually seeks to have access to 100MW of behind-the-meter natural gas to support its footprint.

Currently, the company offers access to the Nvidia B200, H200, and H100 GPUs via its HPC cloud, among others.